High-speed rail is dead.

In one of the easiest decisions he will ever make as premier of Ontario, Doug Ford just pulled the plug on the project to bring 250-kilometre-per-hour trains between London and Toronto via Kitchener.

This is a no-brainer for Ford, who recently removed David Collenette, a former Liberal cabinet minister, as head of the task force for the project. Here's why:

•Money. Ford and his Progressive Conservatives won the June election by presenting themselves as respectful of taxpayers' money, in contrast to the tax-and-spend-and-still-run-deficits style of the previous Liberal government. High-speed rail would cost $11 billion. Ford knows we don't have it, and it would be off-message for him to spend it.

•Politics, part one. High-speed rail is especially important to certain people — the highly educated tech sector, climate-change activists, and people who are constantly comparing Canada (unfavourably) to Europe, where high-speed trains are common. These groups aren't in Ford's base, and never will be. He loses nothing by disappointing them.

• Politics, part two. On the other hand, people who live in rural southwestern Ontario, where the rail lines were expected to be built, are part of the Conservative bedrock in this province. And they were deeply upset at not being consulted in the early stages of the project. They'll celebrate if the plan is scrapped.

•Practicalities. We should learn to walk before we run. People of all backgrounds and political beliefs agree it makes no sense to go ahead with a high-speed rail plan when "they could take that money and ensure we get two-way all-day" train service from Waterloo Region to Toronto, says Wilmot Township Mayor Les Armstrong. And what about Highway 7 between Kitchener and Guelph? When is that going to be built?

•Lack of a business case. Canada is one of the most sparsely populated countries in the world, even at Ontario's southwestern strip. We don't have the population to make high-speed rail viable.

•Optics. Look at what Ford's been doing since he got into Queen's Park this summer and you'll see a pattern. He caused chaos for Toronto council when he drastically cut the number of councillors to be elected. He also cancelled the basic-income pilot project for impoverished Ontarians, and suspended the sex-education curriculum in elementary schools. Both were signature projects for former Liberal premier Kathleen Wynne. And now he's putting the brakes on high-speed rail, another pet project.

Anything that's connected to the so-called "liberal elites" (such as Toronto city council) or that was of special importance to the Liberals, it seems, is singled out for Ford's hit list.

With his actions this summer, Ford is signifying that he is completely different from the party most Ontarians were desperate to throw out of office.

It's good politics for him. In the end it may also be good policy for Ontario.

Later in the mandate there will be time to come back and look at rail service as a whole. "We live in such an environmentally and agriculturally significant area of the country," says Nicole Langlois, an advocate who was concerned about the Liberal approach.

"It needs a really steady hand at the wheel to do this right."

Ford has a chance to be that hand.

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ldamato@therecord.com

Twitter: @DamatoRecord