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The idea for a permanent infrastructure fund was originally raised last month, as the Mayor’s allies on council tried to find a compromise to keep the Sheppard subway in play. At the 11th hour, they proposed a 1% property tax hike and a new levy on parking spaces to create a permanent, $100-million a year fund for transit. Ultimately, the Mayor’s opponents, content with their plan and its business model, chose not to go for the compromise and the Mayor himself never explicitly endorsed the plan.

“The Mayor is struggling with the concept because the Mayor is not thrilled about new taxes or increasing taxes, but this is the moment of statesmanship, leadership, compromise, whatever you want to call it,” said Councillor Mike Del Grande, the Mayor’s budget chief. The Mayor’s allies eventually went ahead with their proposal without the Mayor’s support, effectively sidelining their boss while pursuing his agenda — as clear a sign as any that Ford had completely lost any control over, and influence in, the city’s transit debate.

Even though the proposal wasn’t enough to save the Sheppard subway, it has too much merit to simply give up on it. The transit debate in Toronto was severely complicated by the fact that some of the money the various council factions were squabbling over was pledged by the federal and provincial governments. There was real concern that those other cash-strapped levels of government might walk away, taking their money with them, if they found the ultimate plan settled upon by council unsatisfactory. Toronto would be well served by establishing a fund and becoming, at least to some extent, the master of its own house. Contrary to the simplistic conservative message the Mayor prefers, this would signal that true conservatives understand that money must be spent. But it must be spent clearly, responsibly and for concrete, material goals, not abstract concepts. And it must further be spent in full recognition that it is being taken from those who have earned it, and they deserve to have it spent well.