As about-faces go, the hated, Tory-dominated Toronto Port Authority has made a few doozies.[rssbreak]
But the announcement via tersely worded press release late Tuesday that the TPA is shelving plans for a $38 million pedestrian tunnel to the Island Airport, saying it won’t be able to meet the 2011 deadline to qualify for federal funding, is sudden.
The TPA’s not elaborating on its reasons.
Could the Tories finally be getting hip to the fact that the TPA’s continuing hijinks – the latest involving staff use of office computers to do political fundraising for former TPA CEO and Tory cabinet minister Lisa Raitt – are costing them politically? Probably not.
But what if the Tories pulled the plug as part of a pre-emptive, pre-election strike to soften opposition and maybe squeeze a seat or two from the teetering Liberals next election go-round? That would certainly make for brilliant PR now that the Tories are flirting with a majority.
The scarier scenario: the TPA has bigger plans – namely, that bridge to the airport our good mayor killed a few years back.
See the report, Fixed Link To The Airport, dated April 1998, by Dillon Consulting, the TPA’s engineering firm of choice, which concluded that “a moveable bridge is the most practical form for the Fixed Link [to the Island Airport].”
