You want to beat the Scarborough subway? Here’s how you beat it: they pull a knife, you pull a gun. They send one of yours to the hospital, you send one of theirs to the mor ...

Wait. That’s not the defence against the Scarborough subway. That’s Sean Connery’s advice on capturing Al Capone. At this point, the subway situation may be uglier.

But the basic point Connery’s Untouchables character was making may translate, a bit, as the never-ending, apparently never-changing debate about the subway returns to yet another council meeting. To win a street fight you need to fight in the streets. And you don’t want to be the one holding a knife when a gun battle breaks out.

Similarly, I’m not sure you want to bring a judicial inquiry to a political fight. Not if you want to win.

That, however, is what Councillor Josh Matlow is doing at this week’s council meeting, calling for a formal inquiry into the decision-making process regarding the subway approval and the misinformation provided to city council by staff in that process. “Our city has far too often neglected evidence-based transit priorities while approving proposals that serve the fewest people for the most money,” Matlow writes in his request. “City Council is on the verge of setting a new precedent by neglecting the public trust, and with such a gross misexpenditure of public finances.”

I sympathize with him. Man, do I. I have watched this past half-decade as this subway proposal (and the arguments alleged in favour of it) has morphed and changed to suit the craven populist goals of various provincial and municipal con artists. The subway plan is bad transit planning of absurdist proportions, an absurdly deep hole in the ground in which the city plans a $3.35 billion bonfire of taxpayer cash. It has at almost every stage been promoted with misinformation, obfuscation, and the frequent disingenuous slander of reasonable people who dare to tell the truth.

I have hammered out the details of why I believe that, through many thousands of words in at least three different publications over the past six or seven years. My colleagues at the Star continue to do very valuable work reporting on just how and in what ways this festival of crap grew and evolved. But I’m not sure it’s a good use of anyone’s time for me to go over all those arguments again here. If you would care to read such a precis, you likely already have the details memorized.

Suffice it to say this particular subway extension is pure policy garbage, promoted shamelessly by people who know it is garbage.

That last part is key here, I think. I do not believe any of the main politicians who support this subway believe that it is a better transit choice to serve the people of Scarborough than the alternative plans for an LRT network. Matlow talks about neglecting evidence-based decision making, but I do not think that neglect is an accident. Those politicians — the mayor and a majority of council — have purposely indulged in decision-based evidence making, shifting the argumentative goalposts every time they are thoroughly and decisively discredited, and every time the plan changes to give people less for ever more money.

I believe we have enough evidence to know right from wrong here. But the politicians ramming this tunnel through do not care about evidence. They care about politics.

And that’s their right. That’s why we call them politicians.

To them — Mayor John Tory, Premier Kathleen Wynne, Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford — the politics are clear: they think a sizable and decisive part of the electorate has a ride-or-die attitude to this subway extension, no matter what it costs and no matter what it is compared to (even helicopter commutes and a gift of a pony for everyone for more than $1 billion less money, as I’ve pointed out before).

The people want this subway. That’s what Tory and his gang believe. That is the politics of this situation.

No piece of evidence about comparative travel times or projected ridership or even cost is going to change those politics. We’ve seen that. No procedural motion or staff report will change the politics. No judicial inquiry finding is going to change the politics. Unlike with even Capone in the end, there’s not even some tax-evasion technicality that might finally win out. This just isn’t an evidence fight.

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You want to win a political fight? You take it to the people. You put forward your argument and your plan, and you make this the ballot box question in the election. The election campaign that starts at the end of the month. You want to defeat the Scarborough subway extension John Tory has been pushing? Get in the ring. Put your name on the ballot. Or find someone who will.

None of the most prominent Scarborough subway extension opponents has shown any inclination to run against John Tory to fight this political battle. It’s the only thing likely to work. And apparently the only thing no one will do.

Edward Keenan is a columnist based in Toronto covering urban affairs. Follow him on Twitter: @thekeenanwire

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