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Mayor John Tory’s plan to charge a $2 toll for use of two key Toronto roadways reminds me of an episode from The Sopranos in which Tony ferries Meadow around prospective colleges in Maine.

During their pleasant father-daughter outing Tony happens to spot a former hood who testified against the mob, receiving a new identity in return. Criminal honour demands Tony administer justice. After dropping off Meadow for an interview, he races away, finds the rat, strangles him to death and heads back to campus where all pleasantries resume, except for a bit of blood around the knuckles.

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Here’s the connection: like Tony, Toronto just can’t help itself. Give it half a chance, and the mask falls away to reveal the city beneath the façade.

Nothing makes Toronto happier than advertising its liberal credentials, until it’s asked to pay

Toronto likes to think of itself as cultivated, cultured, educated, progressive. Nothing makes it happier than advertising its liberal credentials. Every summer it falls all over itself in self-regard at the spectacle of its Pride parade, when is Bigger! Better! And More Caring! than any other Pride parade, proof positive of just how brilliantly enlightened residents are. At election time it’s a sea of red. Both Kathleen Wynne and Justin Trudeau owe Toronto big-time: they’d be short several dozen crucial seats if the city ever lost its desperate need to advertise its superior values. The only part of big-spending governments Torontonians dislike is the part where they’re supposed to pay some of the freight for the high-minded services they demand. Wait a minute, hold on now, let’s not get crazy here…. You want us to pay for all this stuff?