Mayor John Tory pushed the owner of the Scarborough Town Centre to back a controversial $3.35-billion one-stop subway extension plan, the company says, as it further distanced itself from that project.

And though the mayor has previously brushed off involvement with a lobby group backed by Oxford Properties, in an unusual move president and CEO Blake Hutcheson told a crowd of investors on Monday that Tory influenced them to get involved with the ConnectScarborough organization that has been criticized as portraying itself as a grassroots campaign.

“We’ve been bombarded by the mayor’s office, who are fully in favour of the subway; by multiple councillors who have an alternative view,” Hutcheson said at an annual meeting of the pension group OMERS, which was captured on an official video posted online.

“The Scarborough Town Centre team backed a group that were advocates for the subway . . . Which is what the mayor wanted, frankly, asked us to support.”

There is lots at stake. Transit investment in the area will mean massive redevelopment, the city says, and would be a huge boon for large property owners like Oxford which is also behind the Yorkdale Shopping Centre and several other large commercial and retail properties in Toronto, and has openly discussed plans for future growth around the Town Centre.

Oxford’s restated position comes amidst growing political concerns about the rising costs of the subway. Those concerns put Tory on the offensive ahead of the last council vote on subway, actively pushing a project that was a key part of his campaign in the 2014 mayoral election. In a 28 to 18 vote on March 28, council voted to move ahead with the subway plan despite a staff report that now puts the costs at $3.35 billion.

On Tuesday, when asked by a reporter, Tory did not deny the links to Oxford, saying he speaks often with the CEO, but that he wasn’t aware of Hutcheson’s comments and that the executive has long been an “enthusiastic supporter” of the subway on his own.

“The notion that anybody bombarded anybody into doing anything is, you know, I think not really realistic,” he said. “At the end of the day I wish sometimes I had more ability to persuade people to do things as mayor. I don’t. It’s a free country. People do as they wish.”

When concerns about lobbying efforts surrounding the subway plan were raised by transit advocates at Tory’s executive committee in March, the mayor downplayed any connection to Oxford.

“I think I shook their hand once in a mall,” said Tory, who was pictured posing in a ConnectScarborough T-shirt in social media posts by the group in January and was the key speaker at a town hall-turned pro-subway rally hosted by the group less than a week after the executive meeting.

“They were at a booth and I think I shook their hand.”

Speaking to the Star Tuesday, Hutcheson softened his comments, saying at no point were they "strong-armed" by anyone, including the mayor's office.

"The mayor's office encouraged us to get involved," he said, noting their previous public support of the subway is on record.

But on Monday, Hutcheson repeatedly said Tory had a strong hand in their subway advocacy.

“He’s got 1/45th of a say and so we got behind it early,” said Hutcheson, who was on Tory’s 20-member advisory team during the mayor’s transition into municipal office in 2014. “Once we realized that there were deterrents at council who didn't want us to back a single solution, we stopped funding that group and backed out and said listen, ‘Yes we own real estate, yes we think some infrastructure improvement in that area makes sense — whether it’s a full subway, whether it's a derivation thereof — we were not putting all our chips on one square.”

Hutcheson’s comments were prompted by questioning from Toronto resident Rosemary Frei, who along with the group Scarborough Transit Action have been advocating for evidence-based decision making they see as lacking in transit decisions at city hall. The transit advocates are in favour of a light rail, 24-stop network, including a seven-stop LRT fully-funded by the province which was cancelled during the previous term of council.

By funding ConnectScarborough — which is run by a Liberal lobbyist Ryan Singh, whose firm works on behalf of Oxford, to sway council members on policy matters — Frei said Oxford Properties had not taken a neutral view. She pressed Hutcheson on that point as he stood on the stage.

“Is it about purely profit or taking into consideration the lives affected and people?” she said. “It’s going to bankrupt the city, unfortunately and (Tory’s) giving it a blank cheque at a time when he's cutting back significantly . . . It’s a very short-term thinking for a long-term pain.”

“Fair question,” said Hutcheson. “As things played out, we backed away from that position and said whatever you want to do to invest in that area is OK by us. We’re not going to back a single solution.”

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The Star reported last month that Oxford had quietly de-funded the ConnectScarborough group and had backed away from strongly advocating for a subway as the decision came to another vote at council.

At that March 28 meeting, Tory and a majority of council members who have championed the one-stop extension to the Town Centre rejected a motion from Councillor Josh Matlow to see a business case analysis comparing both the subway and LRT options amid concerns of rising costs — a comparison city manager Peter Wallace said has never been done.

Council voted to move forward with a subway plan, aligned on McCowan Rd., without that information.

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