Scarborough Liberal MPP Brad Duguid endorses John Tory for mayor

Standing outside Kennedy station, Duguid said his Liberal colleagues in Scarborough and across the province are "almost unanimously enthusiastic" about Tory’s candidacy, and added Tory is also supported by PC MPPs "and some NDPers too."

A former Scarborough city councillor who is now Ontario’s minister for economic development and infrastructure, Duguid linked this confidence to the belief Tory "is the person we need" to build a subway from Kennedy to Sheppard Avenue in Scarborough.

The province and the city council, which changed its mind twice under Mayor Rob Ford on which transit line should replace the aging Scarborough Rapid Transit system, must agree, which means the province needs a "stable council" and stable mayor, said Duguid.

"The biggest challenge we had was a city that kept changing its position all along," he said. "With John Tory, we will not have that problem."

The province committed last summer to spend $1.4 billion on an extension of the Bloor-Danforth subway to Sheppard instead of a light-rail line, already approved, which follows a longer route with more stops. Like the Scarborough RT, neither route would affect surface traffic.

Tory and Ford both support the subway, while their rivals Olivia Chow and David Soknacki say they’d build the LRT instead, pointing out it will cost Toronto taxpayers $1 billion more.

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But while saying the Liberal government won’t endorse any mayoral candidate, and neither will Premier Kathleen Wynne, Duguid promised if Chow is elected and makes a move to cancel the subway, "I will fight it to my dying day."

Beside him, Tory said he’d work to attract jobs around the subway route and avoid "the re-changing of minds" council went through under Ford.

Re-opening old debates and old wounds on the subway won’t move the city forward, he argued.

Later, Chow, a former Toronto councillor and MP, said Duguid’s endorsement and suggestion of strong Liberal support for Tory "doesn’t really change anything for me" on the Scarborough subway, a project "every expert" has been saying it makes better sense to build above ground.

Tearing up the master agreement between the city and the province’s Metrolinx agency as well as the contract with LRT-car-maker Bombardier, Chow added, will waste $100 million and only launch four years of studies.

Chow also charged Tory is "saying no" to people along Finch West in North York, and along Sheppard from Kennedy to McCowan Road in Scarborough, who would have benefited from planned and funded LRT lines, and she portrayed Tory’s strategy as one which aims to improve transit in the city a decade from now.

Frances Lankin, a former New Democrat MPP and cabinet minister who is backing Chow, said she believes there is support at Queen’s Park for both her and Tory. Both are well-known and respected.

If Chow wins, she’ll have a mandate to build the LRT, which the Metrolinx board declared the better option, said Lankin, who is also a former Metrolinx board member.

In a city hall scrum, Mayor Rob Ford’s campaign manager Doug Ford lashed out at Duguid and Tory, arguing that neither have the interests of the people of Scarborough at heart.

"I want to ask Brad Duguid one question: where does he stand on burying the Eglinton line?" said Ford, referring to the Eglinton Crosstown LRT, which will run at street level through Scarborough.

"He believes there should be a two-tiered transit system for the City of Scarborough. He believes the people of Scarborough should be outside freezing their butts off," and so does Tory, said Ford.

Soknacki, in a release, said Tory’s position on the Scarborough RT’s replacement was different when he headed a thinktank on Greater Toronto issues.

"John Tory’s decision to continue to push for the Scarborough subway project means he’s now willing to waste precious transit dollars on politicized transit planning, in direct contradiction to the positions he stood behind as Civic Action chair," Soknacki said.

- with files from David Nickle