Why an NDP veteran cut his party ties over tolls
Paul Ferreira, a lifelong New Democrat, one-time MPP, and former chief of staff to two NDP leaders, has quit the party.

Thestar.com
By MARTIN REGG COHN
Dec. 13, 2016

Politicians are like pretzels - easily twisted out of shape.

Until they snap.

Ontario’s Progressive Conservatives are twisting themselves into cloverleafs over road tolls. But they’re not the only politicians clutching fig leafs.

The New Democratic Party is also twisting and turning in ideological circles over road tolls. And this time, the road kill is one of their own.

Paul Ferreira, a lifelong New Democrat, one-time MPP, and former chief of staff to two of Ontario’s NDP leaders, has quit the party.

Many New Democrats responded by telling him they’d “already taken a similar decision,” Ferreira told me, for the same reason: The party is being “fundamentally dishonest.”

His departure is a loss for the NDP. And a sign that, in his words, the party has “lost its way” by erecting “reactionary” roadblocks against highway tolls.

For Ferreira, the party’s decision to get in bed with the anti-toll Tories last week was the “last straw.”

Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown led opposition in the legislature to a plan by Toronto Mayor John Tory - himself a former leader of the PCs from 2004-09 - seeking toonie tolls on the city-owned Don Valley Parkway and Gardiner Expressway. Never mind that the plan emanates from city hall, Brown is trying to pin the blame on Premier Kathleen Wynne.

The Liberal government’s position is that it will allow the local, elected level of government to decide its fate - a position Brown once held, but has since set aside. Bizarrely, Brown now insists he will overturn any provincial authorization should he ever become premier, tying Toronto in knots.

And so the PCs are leading with U-turns. And the NDP is following.

“From a strategic point of view I was gobsmacked that we would support that motion,” Ferreira said in our interview.

In the legislature, the party’s position was articulated by Gilles Bisson - an MPP from Timmins attacking tolls in Toronto on behalf of his northern constituents: “First off, I want to say that New Democrats will be voting in favour of this (PC) motion, because we, too, believe that citizens back home, our friends and our neighbours, are being squeezed.”

Ferreira was incredulous. “The guy from Timmins is the guy who speaks out on a Toronto issue?”

When Ferreira dared to speak of tolls in the 2011 election, NDP Leader Andrea Horwath muzzled him. His mistake had been to give an honest answer when the issue came up during a radio debate on Toronto issues:

“I think we owe it to voters, to residents, to citizens to have mature conversations on topics like that. Should there be road tolls?”

The next day, Horwath threw him under the bus - and rallied to the defence of the almighty car:

“Definitely no tolls!” she told reporters on the campaign trail. “I was quite surprised to find that this is something Paul said during a debate.... If he’s trying to do that then it will stop at my desk.”

Canvassing for votes that evening, Ferreira could hear Horwath’s voice wafting from television sets in an apartment hallway. A voter opening the door to Ferreira recognized him as the candidate who had just been repudiated by his leader, and gave him a quizzical look.

Done in by his own party, he stuck with them a while longer. Now he’s done with New Democrats for good.

What bothers Ferreira is that he long ago understood the need for tolls to make motorists pay their fair share. And was made to pay price for being ahead of the curve.

All these years later, city hall is coming round to his position - even NDP councillors are seemingly, grudgingly, open to tolls - but not Ontario New Democrats. Coveting votes in the suburbs, tolls are too toxic - for Horwath as they are for Brown and even Wynne.

The NDP-PC tag team rallied against Wynne as she considered new tolls during her first minority government. When the premier later took a timid first step with optional high-occupancy toll lanes, Horwath disparaged them as “Lexus lanes” (ignoring studies that show working class motorists also use them to bypass traffic jams if they’re late for a job).

Today’s anti-toll, anti-tax NDP is more transactional than environmental. But opposing road tolls won’t make inroads for them in downtown Toronto.

Ferreira says the party is wrong both ideologically and strategically. By betting on the 905 over the 416, the NDP is taking downtown voters for granted while chasing a suburban dream - riding the auto boom - that will only twist it out of shape, he warns.

“The party right now is at a crossroads.”

Or perhaps the NDP has come to a cloverleaf - which is, after all, an interchange designed by road engineers to avoid left-hand-turns.