Some 20 years ago this city region embarked on a forced journey with a latent promise to establish Toronto as a city that is the envy of North America, if not the world.

The forced amalgamation of downtown with the suburban cities of East York, Scarborough, North York, Etobicoke and York was undemocratically conceived, brutishly executed and painfully delivered by a hostile provincial government.

The pain and despair is only now dissipating — and never will disappear for front-line opponents, especially those who fear that, given time, the suburban ethic will subsume downtown progressive sensibilities.

It’s been an uneasy shotgun marriage. But the new Toronto is such a vibrant, unstoppable force with so much going for it that even the savagery of the Mike Harris government was unable to destroy it. Stultified and hampered and encumbered, yes. But, as the late, great African American author Maya Angelou would say, “Still we rise.”

The city is at another crossroads.

Silently, unheralded, we approach the intersection. This is a moment of great opportunity and nascent danger. Mayor John Tory has no real challengers to his title, with a campaign coming this summer and a vote in October. And a new premier with unfriendly intent could soon be ensconced at Queen’s Park.

A few months ago the horizon presented so differently. Incumbent Tory was preparing to face a challenge from Doug Ford, the guy he beat in 2014. In fact, Tory’s entire four-year mayoralty has been conducted with the Ford challenge in mind.

For example, Tory supported the building of a one-stop Scarborough subway in addition to his Smart Track stations in Scarborough — an overkill that does not best address the transit needs — specifically to short-circuit Ford’s “subways, subways, subways” mantra.

And rarely has a Toronto politician spent so much time and capital purporting to move traffic (and largely failing) — all in an effort to blunt Ford’s “war on the car” message.

Instead of spending more to reduce poverty, improve the city’s housing stock and help the most vulnerable, Tory staunchly restricted property tax hikes at around 2 per cent. This was strategically designed to mute Ford’s claims that the city was flushing taxpayers’ money down the drain.

Surprise. We turned the corner, and an unexpected vista opened. Suddenly, Ford is on the verge of heading to Queen’s Park as premier and, by extension, Tory’s boss. Ford’s mad musings will then have to be heeded instead of ridiculed and ignored. Strategic, strident resistance from civic leaders, backed by an informed populace will be essential.

But what’s the cause? What are we trying to preserve, to incubate, to propagate, to grow? At what cost? We don’t know. Our mayor has not made the case and drummed it home. He has not rallied the troops to protect the homeland. And now he may be forced to do it under duress, with reflex urgency rather than logic and resolve that takes root deep in the city’s consciousness.

If Tory had not spent his entire mayoralty fending off the potential ghost candidacy of Doug Ford, he would have mapped out a powerful long-term vision for Toronto’s future. We would already know the sacrifices we have to make, the cost of getting there, the timeline, and the challenges. Sadly, we don’t. In fact, fearful of exposing the impact on our pocketbooks and the unpalatable political decisions he would have to make — Tory refuses to let city council debate the future needs of the city.

Last week his executive committee considered the future fiscal demands as prepared by the city’s top bureaucrats. City manager Peter Wallace told a familiar story. The status quo will land you with a $1.4 billion annual hole in five years. Chop spending in ways few city councillors will stomach, or find new revenue, or increase property taxes.

This sounds like the type of discussion and debate and wrangle that city councillors should have — with the public observing and taking notes. Then residents would go into the October municipal elections knowing what vision to endorse. And, armed with that mandate, the victorious mayor would be in a strong position to push back against inimical initiatives the province might want to impose.

But no. Tory sidelined Wallace’s report back to staff for more massaging that will arrive in 2019, well after the municipal election. Tory chickened out when a bold, enterprising outlook is required.

But wait. Tory might suddenly find the gumption to summon his nerves. In fact, if Tory had known that his potential nemesis Doug Ford would have been out of the picture this summer, he might have gone about this differently. So, maybe now he can grow some spine.

The citizens that appeared before the executive committee last week demanded exactly that. Adina Lebo, speaking for the Canadian Association of Retired Persons, urged council to “take this on NOW” because the alternative is “unacceptable.”

“Solutions must be found for the 101,000 that are on social housing wait lists, and solutions to the dangerous and critical situation of TTC during rush hour, the 189,000 on the recreation waiting list and the three-year waiting list for vulnerable seniors to get dental care, 15,000 children waiting for child care spaces, the 27 per cent child poverty rate (highest in Canada) and the...” you get the idea.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

Why put off a council debate on these critical matters? Must we wait until a new Pharaoh presides at Queen’s Park with edicts to convert appropriately placed LRT lines into subways, cut spending on social services to the vulnerable, sell off public assets, denude our environment and become a meaner, nastier municipality?

The risk of losing the mayoralty to a right-wing axe man is gone. To reclaim the moral authority he abandoned, Tory must act now and establish a City Vision, a beachhead from which Toronto can defend itself against the coming tumult from Queen’s Park.

Royson James is a former Star reporter who is a current freelance columnist based in Toronto. Follow him on Twitter: @roysonjames

Read more about: