Despite the Liberals committing close to $1.4 billion for the subway in Scarborough, Mayor Ford is out on the campaign trail with PC candidate Ken Kirupa claiming that Liberals don’t back subways and dismissing Mitzie Hunters claim of being a subway champion as a “bunch of malarky.”

The issue comes down to who to believe? As far as I know Mr. Kirupa does not smoke crack, does not hang out with drug dealers, but like Mayor Ford he claims to want subways although he has never been part of the push for subways in Toronto.

I do know that Mitzie Hunter is a transit advocate, and have heard her speak dozens of times as CEO of Civic Action on the need for regional transit.

Rob Ford claims that Conservatives will build subways but to date the only money that has been dedicated to the Scarborough subway has come from the Wynne Liberals, and it doesn’t appear that Ford has managed to get any financial commitments from the Federal Conservatives. This seems extremely odd, since most large infrastructure projects across Canada are split 3 ways between, city, province and the federal government.

Winston Churchill once said “The farther backward you are able to look the farther forward you are likely to see.” I would add that good governing is about making hard decisions for the long-term. Bad governing occurs when politicians make short-term decisions to gain votes.

Unfortunately the provincial Conservatives have demonstrated bad government over the past two decades. Starting with the Mike Harris government, like Mayor Ford they offered immediate tax cuts, but ignored the long-term impacts. Their decision to sell highway 407 to balance their budget was a lesson in complete short-sightedness. The Harris government sold the 407 for only $3.1 Billion, estimates three years later valued it at well over $12Billion.

When it comes to subway and transit expansion what worries me most about the provincial Conservatives is their history of short-term decision making. Take the Harris government decision in 1995 to halt the extension of the Yonge line to Downsview as well as the Eglinton subway project. Current leader Tim Hudak was a key player in the Harris government when the Eglinton subway line, estimated to cost $2.6 Billion in 1995, was cancelled and buried in. Today we are paying close to $8.2 Billion for the Eglinton crosstown line.

The short-term decision to cancel transit expansion projects across the GTHA by the Harris government created the gridlock we have today. The C.D. Howe Institute estimates that gridlock is costing residents and businesses well over $12 Billion per year.  The Progressive Conservatives have a long history of short-term decision making that have costly long-term impacts on Ontario residents and businesses.

So today if Rob Ford reaches your door and promises that Conservatives will deliver subway expansion ask him why they cancelled it in the 90s, and why the federal Conservatives haven’t come through with any funding — and check to see if his eyes are glazed over.

Toronto needs a vision, with lack of leadership we  haven’t had a strong long-term encompassing vision in decades.  Without this vision Toronto gets pulled from extreme left to far right of the political spectrum with each election.

It doesn’t help having opportunistic politicians using our differences to divide rather than unite us. Toronto has fallen far behind other cities precisely because we haven’t united, but constantly fall into division.

You only have to look at Toronto’s decaying transit system to see what years of indecision have done. Transit and subway expansion have fallen dramatically behind from a point in the late 70s when Toronto was once a world leader in subway development.  Commute times in the GTA are now the worst in North America at an average 80 minutes. Add to that the cost of gridlock that is estimated 6 billion dollars in lost productivity per year and there is not just a philosophical argument but a strong economic case to be made for ending the partisan division and uniting behind a strong vision.

A strong vision needs a strong effective leader who can build consensus and who will work tirelessly to unify the city. I don’t believe that leader can be found on city council. Here’s why: I’ve spent the past few years working on getting the east west relief subway line on TTC and Metrolinx plans; I’ve also worked to push the idea of dedicated transit funding to pay for the subway and transit expansion in the Toronto region.  This required hours spent at city hall, in committee rooms, councillors offices and at city council meetings.  It gave me first hand experience at city hall with city councillors. I have watched councillors interact, play political games and fight for what they believe in. There are some who truly want to make the city a better place, some who pretend to want to, and others who can’t seem to see beyond their ward.

I’ve watched councillors I thought had leadership potential ignore many opportunities to lead, especially when it comes to subway and transit expansion.

For example Councillor Karen Stintz, chair of the TTC, has changed positions on the Danforth subway line, and the Big Move transit plan, so many times that I doubt anyone knows what her “vision” will be next week let alone a year from now.

Karen is learning, she is determined, and she carries enough doubt to question everything around her. She makes a good councillor, but her constant position changes don’t provide the stability needed for leadership.

If Councillor Stintz had supported the Big Move plan, and instead of announcing her own divergent plan, if she had worked to add the transit lines she believes necessary to the Big Move plan, she would have earned much more credibility and demonstrated the consistency needed for leadership.

In 2012, Councillor Stintz broke ranks with Mayor Ford and  supported Transit City with plans for above ground LRT to replace the aging Scarborough RT.  However in the past month, with thoughts of a mayoral run in her head, she now seems to be backing a subway to replace the RT in a move that looks more like pandering for Scarborough votes than strong leadership supporting underground transit.

But what truly lost my belief in Councillor Stintz was her refusal to take a strong stand on funding tools for transit.  When leadership on revenue tools was needed earlier this year Councilor Stintz, played political games declaring the tools she would NOT support instead of sticking her neck out and backing the tools that she would support. It’s a subtle difference with a huge impact.

As Chair of the TTC Councillor Stintz could have shown leadership by strongly stating to the Province the tools she and council supported to fund subway and transit expansion, but instead she backed away from taking any responsibility. Her actions and those who supported them set the move toward dedicated transit funding back months, perhaps years.  Toronto should have led the region on laying out the transit funding tools that we, as a city, accept. This would have set the stage putting the Province government in the position of having to support those tools or risk looking unresponsive to the need for transit expansion.

By abdicating her responsibility Councillor Stintz delayed and added to 40 years of political indecision around transit funding.

Over the past term I haven’t seen any councillors step up and fill the leadership void at city hall. I’ve made no secret of my support for John Tory. He’s a leader who can unite the city and he understand the importance of dedicated funding for transit expansion.

Transit funding has become a political football at the Provincial level. Dedicated revenue streams for transit expansion are crucial, but it is important that we secure the funding with something like a sunset clause to restrict politicians from using the funding for anything else thus removing it from the political arena. Dedicated transit funding must survive beyond changes in government.

My vision for Toronto is to build an expansive underground transit (LRT & Subway trains) system that supports the Big Move regional transit plan.  To do this the Toronto region will need secured and dedicated transit funding – from a 1% sales tax, to development charges and tolls — we have many options, but we lack politicians with the balls and tenacity to stand up for it

Annual spring-clean up in our house means our boys each have to fill a large box with toys for charity — and it always brings back memories of my childhood. My twin brother and I didn’t have a lot of toys.  My parents put everything they had into buying our farm, and building our home.  Any money my father made went into buying shingles, wood or paint.  Our home was an eclectic place and reflected the values of my parents – my father built polished oak bookshelves, but our living room had plywood where the door to the garden should have been.  Our clothes were patched up hand-me-downs from our older siblings, but our house was filled with books.

In the late 70s most of the major banks wanted to get rid of what was they viewed as high-risk farm mortgages. They called in a lot of these mortgages and owners were expected to come up with the funds in 30 days. But once a bank called a mortgage, no other bank would touch it.  A lot of people lost their farms and our family was one of them. We lost almost everything when the bank foreclosed and sold our farm for the value of mortgage owed (not even 1/4 of its value), but we were allowed to keep our furniture … and our books.

We moved from our farm into run-down house in the city.   The house was in what was then the poor area of Burlington in the downtown core, filled with boarded-up old homes, low rent apartments, and community housing. At the age of 11 my brother and I found ourselves in a very different world; we went from building forts in the fields and forests, to exploring abandoned houses filled with drug addicts. At the farm school, most of the kids came from lower-income families and like us, they wore second-hand clothes, but there was more wealth in the city where the upper and middle-class kids came to school in designer jeans.

I was picked on, beaten up and bullied until I learned how to throw a punch, to stand up to the bullies and never back down.  It only took a few good punches before my reputation began to spread. I discovered that most bullies are cowards, and by standing up to them, and yelling just as loudly, I could destroy their status. By high school they avoided me completely.

Like many kids from my neighborhood, I landed my first job in grade nine and worked every day after school, this separated me from the middle-class and rich kids who enrolled in after school sports. But my job gave me confidence and my vision expanded quickly beyond the vast majority of high-school kids who were pre-occupied with a need to fit in.

Back then the middle-class dominated, and kids from wealthy families were as much a minority as the low-income kids.  The kids who focused on their studies were dubbed the school nerds (both low and high income). There was also a small group of wealthy kids who used their wealth to impress and insert themselves into every group.  Driven by their misguided belief in their own superiority, they needed to be popular and enjoyed their influence over the majority of middle-class kids. Bullies to the core they would pounce on anyone who threatened their position. Spoiled by wealth they never excelled at anything, their only goal to hold influence over every group – jumping between the jocks and the druggies – they fit into both groups by amplifying their basest and most common attributes. From the class clown, to cool jock, to drug dealer they needed popularity and would do whatever it took to get it. As they aged they fell behind their peers, never having to achieve, their adult lives are a constant attempt to mimic their high-school years.

Even now I can spot the older versions of those high-school bullies. They still don’t fit in, often with radical views and poor judgment. Inheriting their wealth with no need to work hard for anything, they have bravado but lack the confidence that comes from true success. This stunted development (often noticeable in their vocabulary) leads to addiction issues with alcohol and drugs giving them bursts of false confidence. Some are drawn to politics for the power and influence they so desperately need.

These political bullies claim to speak for the average person, pretending to be just like them, they hide their sense of superiority behind crass language and campaign slogans. They loathe minorities, outspoken women, and anything that challenges their status. They pretend to hate the press but need the attention and are drawn to the media, like a moth to a flame. Their lack of personal development puts them at odds with their peers and often embroils them in scandals that seem to be self-inflicted. They work to destroy anyone who stands up to them, deflecting scrutiny, and denying anything that might compromise their support.

Unfortunately they know how to appeal to those with below average intelligence. Using slogans and propaganda, they stir up negative emotions – jealousy, division and hate – to fuel their supporters.

Like any bully, the only way I know to stop them is to punch them back, expose their lies, and never back down. Eventually their supporters will see them for the privileged and spoiled charlatans they are and abandon them.

In Canada the law around sexual assault is designed to protect women from “secondary wounding” that can escalate when the accused holds a position of power and influence. Secondary wounding occurs when people respond to a woman who has been sexually assaulted by making her feel ashamed for coming forward, or blaming her for fabricating the assault.  From minimizing the magnitude of the event, to implying the victim desired financial gain or attention, secondary wounding turns the victim into the criminal and forces the woman to defend her allegations.

In Canada any victim of sexual assault can report an incident to the police in complete anonymity. The victim’s name and picture are protected and will not appear in the press or be released by the police unless she chooses to go public. With municipal political figures a complaint should be made to the OPP rather than local police, who risk being in a conflict of interest.  By making a complaint with the police the offense gets registered and if another is made the police take the previous offenses into account. Sexual assaults often lack the evidence needed to convict the assailant and without proof many women choose not to go to the police fearing that their lack of evidence will only result in dismissal of their claim and work to empower the accused even further.

While I like to think Toronto is a very progressive city there are still old notions of how women must behave that dominate conservative thinking.  Pundits promote the myth that women should never claim sexual assault without proof, ignoring that most sexual assaults occur when eyes are turned the other way. Sadly, if a woman does go public the backlash can be cruel – especially from those who cling to archaic social structures, spewing their opinions with no regard to the secondary harm they cause to the victim.

Social media (facebook/twitter) is creating a more transparent world, challenging the social structures that protected male entitlement.  Women who speak out about sexual assault represent an affront to the old way of doing things. The establishment insists women should deal with sexual assault privately through the police — but without proof charges usually get dropped and the criminal walks away justified. Studies show that the recidivism rate (reoccurrence) of sexual assault can be as high as 88.3 per cent.

With enough exposure calling someone out through social media will put the incident on public record and can serve to bring other victims forward.  The accused has every right to sue the victim for defamation, but this is unlikely because those who commit assault usually have a lot more to hide than their victims.

Studies have shown that there are shared personality traits among men who commit sexual assault. They are men with terrible role models like Chris Brown, or O.J Simpson; they are men raised to be thugs. They cling to anything that focuses on male strength; they hide their emotions, and claim not to “understand” women. Men convicted of sexual assault have an overwhelming sense of privilege that extends not only to the world around them, but into their personal relationships. The respect they show for others is a performance rather than a true understanding of civility. Their relationships aren’t fulfilling or empowering because they aren’t taught the value of respect for themselves, their influence in the world, or their impact on others. They view women as objects rather than equals.  Their exalted belief in their own male perfection dampens their natural drive to mature and develop as individuals. Without this drive emptiness haunts them, drugs and alcohol numb them, and their relationships are chaotic.

These thugs have children, and their daughters grow up believing their fathers’ misconceptions and sharing the same view of success – power, money and men.  They use their sexual power over men and cling to it because in a world of male entitlement it’s the only power they have — but as they age their relationships fail, they become less attractive, and they lose their sexual power over men, turning into sad bitter women lashing out at women who don’t conform as they did.

I could never hate someone with this level of emotional poverty. They are people who are raised without ever understanding the importance of civility or respect. They are deprived of ever having strong meaningful relationships. They rarely question themselves or their limited version of the world around them. And they fight against anything that doesn’t conform to their myopic sense of male entitlement.

There are times when it is important to speak out. When a thug attains power their sense of entitlement escalates, they become falsely confident, demanding and taking more from all those around them. They justify their illegal behavior (drugs/assault/drunk driving) by claiming the “stress” of their position drove them to it.

It is never easy to stand up to the tide of male entitlement that floods our society but unless we do there will be a new generation of emotionally stunted thugs who shun challenge, who expect the world to serve them, and who don’t understand how to have respect for themselves or others.

Civility is the glue that holds us together in a safe, fair and just society. Civility requires respect for others, the ability to accept the truth no matter how it is presented. Civility doesn’t force people into silence, or shame those who refuse to follow custom. Civility stops us from harming each other and allows a deeper understanding of the human condition.