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Metrolinx says it has already spent $85-million on the LRT. Not only was the majority of Council willing to flush that down the john; but at one point TTC chair Karen Stintz, one of the chief architects of this madness, tabled a motion requesting $10-million so that the TTC could get to work immediately on the subway, before we knew if it would even get built! (The motion was ruled out of order.)

For the record, $85-mililion is nearly the entire figure by which the St. Clair Disaster went over budget.

For the record, $85-million is nearly the entire figure by which the St. Clair Disaster went over budget

In the role of Environment Minister Leona Dombrowsky, whose meddling delayed the St. Clair project, we have Transport Minister Glen Murray and the entire Liberal by-election machine, insinuating themselves upon a conversation between City Council and Metrolinx that was fractious enough as it was. We’ve had nearly three years of this back-and-forth insanity since Rob Ford took office. “Lack of closure,” one might say, “has plagued the entire implementation process.”

Indeed, Metrolinx was supposed to provide exactly the sort of “centralized management” that was lacking on St. Clair. As such, I’ve argued that it has been far too “accommodating” of City Council’s Detroitish dysfunction. Now the Liberals have elbowed Metrolinx aside to get their own fat piece of the action. And so now Mr. Murray and Kathleen Wynne stand with Rob Ford, who on Tuesday revealed that he didn’t even know what the Scarborough LRT was. He insisted to Council that it ran along roads, and I don’t think he was lying for effect. I think he believed it.

Enough is enough. What Metrolinx should do is call out the riot police and build the LRT anyway. But because it won’t, it shouldn’t wait until its threatened Aug. 2 deadline to stop work on the LRT. It should down tools today, lay everybody off, not spend another dime of taxpayer money on this excellent transit solution that City Council doesn’t want. This is already worse than the St. Clair disaster, not just financially but because City Council created it all by itself. There is no sense making it even more disastrous.