What do politicians do when they have a political hot potato that could make their election fight far more difficult this October?
Why they defer the issue of course.
I’m referring to the highly controversial renaming of Toronto’s Dundas St. – a ridiculous project approved by two-thirds of Toronto city council in July of 2021.
It was supposed to come back to council this spring, but True North has just learned it will be delayed until after the October election.
A cost of $6.3 million was affixed to the project, but given how city-run projects always go over budget, that is no doubt on the extremely low side.
At the time it was approved, an $820,000 contingency fund was thrown on top, along with $450,000 for community engagement.
More than a year has gone by and nothing more has been heard about it.
Proposed new names to cancel the alleged sins of the street’s namesake – Scottish politician Henry Dundas – for delaying the abolition of the slave trade in the late 1700s have not been forthcoming.
Dundas St. is supposed to be just the start of a renaming epidemic.
“Most commemorations in Toronto represent the stories of white settler males in positions of power,” writes outgoing city manager, Chris Murray, a white male in a position of power, in his 24-page report to council last year.
The new name was to be decided by a community engagement group of black and Indigenous leaders.
The plan to implement address changes for 97,000 residents, 4,500 businesses as well as TTC and parks costs, street signage and the renaming of Yonge-Dundas square has been missing in action too.
All of this was supposed to be presented to councillors in the spring of 2022.
When I first contacted city officials in April, I was told it would likely come to the last meeting of council in mid-July.
But the report is nowhere to be seen on this week’s council agenda.
City spokesman Brad Ross told True North the street renaming will come to the new council in 2023.
Predictable.
Why should Mayor John Tory face the heat now as he tries to sleepwalk to a third term he promised he wouldn’t pursue in 2014.
Why should he or any other incumbent who voted for this silly renaming – based on pressure from a few activists – be expected to answer for their faulty judgment as they do the BBQ circuit this summer and knock on doors this fall?
If Tory and his council had any desire to be accountable, they would make the renaming a referendum question on the October ballot.
But their foolish waste of money and the desperate attempts by this cast of boomers to appear “woke” is not to be questioned, it seems.
Delaying it until after the election when the mayor and his cabal of allegedly “woke” councillors are once again firmly ensconced in their seats is not just cowardly.
It is one more reason constituents have so little use for their politicians at all levels of government.
