On his radio show last week, The Grid’s Ed Keenan asked Olivia Chow to clarify her position on the [insert euphemism here] Relief Line. Her answer:

“I support it. The environmental assessment is being done right now. In the summer, we’ll see the options of which route we’ll take, which stops, and we’ll need to look at the funding options, etc. But according to the TTC’s report from a year and a half ago, the fastest we can build there is 2031. So we’re talking about 17 years. “Can we do it faster? Maybe. But it’s $8 billion. That’s a lot of money, so we need to negotiate with the federal and provincial government on how we’re going to do this. But I don’t think this should be an election issue because nothing is going to break ground for another five years, six years.” [my emphasis added].

Now here’s the answer I’d like to have heard:

“The Relief Line is the single most important infrastructure investment Toronto is going to make in the next 50 years. It will benefit people commuting from Scarborough. It will benefit those traveling from Etobicoke and North York. And yes, the Relief Line will benefit downtowners, although they’ll bear the brunt of the construction. It will make the air cleaner, reduce congestion on our roads, foster economic growth. It is an investment in the future of the whole city. “But no government so far has had the guts to make the tough decisions about financing it. The federal government ignores Toronto. The provincial Liberals build billion-dollar subways to suburban malls and leave local taxpayers holding the bag on operating costs. The current mayor has shown over and over that he has no clue about transit. And my rivals have no plausible plan to pay for this project. “I’m going to fight every day for the funding to make the Relief Line happen — not just when I’m mayor but starting now, during this race. I am calling on Kathleen Wynne to show us the money. And I challenge Tim Hudak and Andrea Horwath to demonstrate to this city’s voters that they care about Ontario’s economic engine.”

Okay, I’ll get off my high horse.

The problem with Chow’s position, in my view, is that she’s telegraphing the message that she’s not prepared to go to the wall to secure the investments necessary to deliver a Relief Line, whatever the configuration. Look for the passive construction in her answers. The money will materialize, somehow, “eventually.” Ergo, it doesn’t need to be an election issue.

Nothing could be further from the truth, and Chow of all people should know better. John Tory, who’s doing plenty of equivocating of his own, was nonetheless right to call her out. In local politics, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Rob Ford knows that. Mel Lastman knew that. David Miller and Hazel McCallion did, too.

Instead of feisty advocacy, Chow conflates process with resources. Yes, technical work will be done by technical people tasked with technical analyses. But nothing can happen until — and unless — our leaders create the political conditions that allow the public to support the necessary spending. There’s no reason we need to wait for all the reports to be completed to have a broad debate about money.

So when I listen to Chow’s evasions, I hear the following:

The sound of a committee-engineered candidate who will do almost anything to avoid the taint of the (incorrect) stereotype about the NDP.

Intimations of a troublingly tentative leadership style.

A lack of understanding about the seriousness of the city’s transportation crisis.

An unwillingness to practice propositional politics.

I can’t say I’m all that surprised. Chow — who showed up for Saturday’s Metrolinx/TTC “Regional Relief Strategy” consultation, along with candidates David Soknacki and Morgan Baskin, as well as transportation minister Glen Murray — has studiously dodged the revenue tools debate for over a year. I suspect she shares Andrea Horwath’s view that the funds should come from higher corporate taxes as well as income tax on upper earners. But if that’s the case, let’s hear her say so.

The other worrisome strand in Chow’s positioning is that she seems to have opted to play on Ford’s fiscal field, by Ford’s rules. As we all know, he’s planted deeply corrosive notions that such projects can be funded simply by making all those lazy civil servants work harder, or that the private sector will pay, or that the money will magically appear from some pot of cash heretofore reserved for the watering of plants, etc. Chow must engage with the funding question, and this election presents an important opportunity to make a case for solving the puzzle.

I am not a fan of Karen Stintz’s many pivots, but give her this much: in the long lead-up to the Scarborough subway vote last year, she forcefully argued that if we want a better city — by which she meant a city with more rapid transit in Scarborough — then we are going to have to face specific financial consequences. Stintz cajoled council, residents and the other orders of government to partake in a tough (albeit incomplete) conversation about the price of such things.

That’s the space I’d like Chow to inhabit, and indeed embrace. A tough, savvy advocate who is willing to stand up for the city’s long-term interests and make the upper orders pay the political price for taking us for granted. But also a leader prepared to speak frankly with voters about the cost of securing Toronto’s future quality of life. In other words, a candidate who conducts politics in the active tense.