Wedged between provincial elections, municipal elections and the outer limits of banality, the Scarborough-Guildwood by-election is one of five taking place in Ontario on August 1. But in addition to serving as a de facto referendum on the incumbent Liberals, this specific race also offers yet another occasion for dragging out and gnawing on the undead corpse of a transit conflict that refuses to remain settled.
As the Liberal seeking to fill a seat relinquished by a Liberal, Mitzie Hunter is arguably the favourite. Her campaign office sits in Markington Square Shopping Centre between a Pet Valu and a McDonald’s Express. When I drop by the Markham-and-Eglinton base before 10:30 am on July 23, it is well staffed and humming but not especially nuts. Pictures of Kathleen Wynne line the walls.
Adam Giambrone’s campaign office is on a stretch of Kingston just south of Lawrence. A former Dairy Queen, its neighbours are an all-you-can-eat sushi restaurant and an RBC. At 11 am that same day, it’s similarly busy but calm. There are many photos of Andrea Horwath. The lone soft drink set out for volunteers is an orange soda of an unfamiliar brand.
Giambrone (a columnist for NOW) is the New Democrats’ star candidate. Seeing his name on election signs through the riding is jarring, invigorating and perplexing, as though the area has been preserved as a circa-2010 historical village.
The office of Progressive Conservative candidate Ken Kirupa is a few blocks south of Giambrone’s in a strip mall, between Yan’s Harmony Health Spa and the All-Star Bar & Eatery. When I walk by, it is quiet. There are three people inside, one of whom appears to be sleeping.
These three candidates and five others had been up early that morning for an 8 am debate organized by the Scarborough chapter of Professional Engineers Ontario. Taking place in the three-chandelier ballroom of Qssis Banquet Halls (sic) at Kingston and Markham, it was – and will be – the only debate of this by-election.
Visitors to the Qssis website are greeted by its logo blasting from an animated fireball. Billy Idol’s White Wedding proceeds to play as you browse.
This sets up unrealistic expectations.
The debate is dull and cynical, even by the standard of such things. With many questions having been “predetermined” (i.e., submitted to candidates in advance), contenders inevitably read or recite prepared remarks in a silly show-and-tell.
Kirupa promises subways without raising taxes. Hunter promises subways without alluding to the new revenue tools she supports. Giambrone promises “rapid transit” without defining it and forgoes any nuance on the matter of new dedicated taxes. (“Absolutely not.”)
“If you look at what that two-to-three-station [subway] extension will mean to the residents of Scarborough-Guildwood: very little,” Giambrone says. “They will still be on a 35- or 40-minute bus trip.”
Since the proposed Bloor-Danforth extension wouldn’t even scrape the riding’s western border, this is correct. But you have to read between the lines to get that Giambrone is promoting light rail as the alternative.
Green candidate Nick Leeson is the only person to openly champion LRT, rhyming off its obvious advantages (it’s cheaper and would serve more people) as Giambrone and former mayor David Miller used to do. It probably says something about our transit discourse that only a candidate who knows he won’t win is confident enough to say what he means.
Hunter, meanwhile, is all about subways, despite having sat on last year’s council-appointed panel that recommended light rail as the preferred option for Sheppard. At the time, the CivicAction CEO (now on leave) spoke passionately about why light rail just made more sense.
And Kirupa’s campaign flyer depicts a streetcar Photoshopped into the middle of Scarborough traffic. That gives you an idea of his level of debate.
The only question I ever really want to ask in interviews is “How, in your mind, do you reconcile this thing with this other thing in such a way that you are not a hypocrite?”
An election characterized by an apparent abandonment of previously professed principles affords numerous opportunities to do so (though not quite in those words).
Tuesday afternoon, a five-minute phone interview with Hunter turns into a rapid-fire grilling.
You support a subway in Scarborough? “I support a subway for Scarborough, to get Scarborough moving. As I talk to residents at the door, they’re telling me that they want a subway in Scarborough and that they want to see these investments made now.”
Why has your opinion on the benefits of subways vs. LRT changed from last year? “My opinion has not changed. The scope of what the expert panel was asked to do was to look specifically at the Sheppard line.”
But why would those principles that applied to Sheppard not apply to this corridor? “The scope of the decision was based on what was provided for Sheppard. When you look at the Big Move and the Metrolinx plan, it’s a comprehensive plan. It’s multi-modal it includes all modes of transit for the Greater Toronto and Hamilton region.”
Okay, but the proposed subway wouldn’t even touch Scarborough-Guildwood, would it? “I know definitely an investment in a subway here would benefit the people of Scarborough. It would make transit much more efficient for people and give them options.”
I just want to understand why an unfunded subway extension with three new stations that would be in walking distance for 24,000 people is better than a funded LRT line with seven new stations that would be in walking distance for 47,000 people. (And one of the LRT stations would be in Scarborough-Guildwood, while none of the subway stations would be.) But beyond broad, Fordian buzzwords about seamlessness and job creation, I don’t get much of an answer.
Giambrone does a bit better when I get him on the phone later that evening.
It gradually becomes clear that his reluctance to say “LRT” and “light rail” comes less from embarrassment than from an aggressive effort to rebrand: it’s about “rapid transit,” “rapid transit,” “rapid transit.”
“What I found out is that people want results,” he says. “They want transit to get moving. They’re not into a debate on individual technical aspects. What they want is to be able to get around faster.”
He says his party’s been “very clear that we’ve got to have this whole rapid transit network approach that involves different modes.”
It’s an admission of defeat on the language. The Fordites have successfully conflated “light rail” with inferiority, and rather than try to exonerate the term, Giambrone is pushing a different approach that downplays the technology in favour of the principle.
Does he wish he had branded it all as “rapid transit” from the beginning, from years ago? An election, he says, affords the opportunity to “actually go door to door, talk to people and find out first-hand. People, really, are less concerned about the particulars. What they want to know is that the projects will actually start. Will actually get finished. And [they] will actually be able to use them.”
At the moment, our city’s transit discussion sits somewhere in east Scarborough, caught awkwardly between David Miller and Rob Ford.
SCARBOROUGH-GUILDWOOD BY THE NUMBERS
Bounded by Bellamy, Hwy 401, Morningside, the Highland Creek and Lake Ontario
Largest groups in order of ethnic origin South Asian, British Isles, Caribbean, European, African
Unemployment rate 9.6 per cent
National rate 6.6 per cent
Homeowners 19 per cent
National rate 27 per cent
Average family income $68,156
National average $82,325
Post-secondary degree 30 per cent
National 33 per cent
Source: StatsCan
2011 provincial election results
Liberal 15,607
PC 9,137
NDP 6,194
jonathang@nowtoronto.com | @goldsbie
CORRECTION (7/25/2013, 2:45 pm): The factbox accompanying this article originally stated that the Rouge River serves as the eastern boundary for the provincial Scarborough-Guildwood riding. In fact, the riding’s eastern border runs along Morningside Avenue, from Highway 401 down to where it intersects with the Highland Creek, and then along the Highland Creek until it reaches Lake Ontario.
