Wynne retreats on tolls after cabinet and caucus opposition
To soften blow, Ontario premier is doubling the share of the two-cents-a-litre gasoline tax earmarked for municipalities by 2021-22.

thestar.com
By Robert Benzie
Jan. 27, 2017

Polls trump tolls.

Trailing in public opinion surveys and scrambling to appease an antsy Liberal cabinet and caucus with an election next year, Premier Kathleen Wynne officially blocked Toronto Mayor John Tory’s plan to toll the Don Valley Parkway and the Gardiner Expressway.

To soften the blow of her U-turn, Wynne is doubling the share of the two-cents-a-litre gasoline tax earmarked for municipalities within five years.

The premier conceded she heard from Liberal MPPs and cabinet ministers worried that allowing Tory to toll the highways would hurt an already unpopular government in the June 7, 2018 election.

“Any leader who doesn’t listen to those voices, doesn’t listen to the team . . . isn’t actually leading. A leader who doesn’t do that is actually dictating and, so, that’s not the kind of leader that I am.”

Sources said Wynne got an earful from three ministers who represent ridings in different parts of the 905 at last week’s cabinet meeting.

Although well aware the premier was a tolls proponent, they warned on Jan. 18 that road charges are political suicide outside downtown Toronto, especially when Liberals are taking heat for rising electricity bills.

There were even rumblings of some ministers and MPPs not seeking re-election next year if tolling was allowed.

So the suburbanites won the day, leaving some city Liberals fuming.

One senior Liberal likened the retreat to the cancellation of gas-fired power plants in Oakville and Mississauga by former premier Dalton McGuinty before the 2011 election.

“It’s the same scenario, following opposition parties downward,” said the insider who requested anonymity in order to speak freely.

As first revealed by the Star, Wynne’s move means an additional $170 million a year for Toronto, less than the $300 million the city anticipated from $2 tolls.

“I know that people are having a hard time keeping up with the rising cost of living. I hear it from people everywhere I go,” Wynne said at a campaign-style announcement in a Richmond Hill bus yard.

“We need to make sure that investing in transit isn’t costing you more money,” said the premier, noting gas taxes will not rise as a result of the change.

The additional funding is coming from a provincial treasury that will finally‎ be in the black this spring, thanks to surging corporate income tax revenue.

While Toronto council voted overwhelmingly in favour of tolls on the city-owned highways last month, regulatory approval from Queen’s Park was required.

Wynne, who had privately assured Tory last summer to “go for it” in slapping fees on the DVP and Gardiner, said she is now refusing that sign-off because commuters don’t have transportation options.

“We have to recognize that people need choices and there have to be affordable options. There are not enough choices in place,” she said, shrugging off the pro-toll crowd as “ideological.”

Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown, who is ahead in the polls and was considering anti-toll billboards on the Gardiner during the election, claimed credit for Wynne’s lane change.

“After months of advocacy from the Ontario PC Party on behalf of commuters in the GTA, the costly toll tax on the Gardiner and the DVP has finally been stopped,” said Brown, who split with Tory, the PC leader from 2004 until 2009, over tolling.

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath, another opponent of tolls even though they are popular with Toronto New Democrats, accused Wynne of playing “games with the urgent need for transit funding.”

“The timing of this announcement and the fact that the money she is promising won’t begin to flow until after the 2018 provincial election is politics at its worst,” said Horwath.

Under the new plan, the province’s $334.5 million in gas tax revenue earmarked this year for 99 municipalities will jump to $642 million by 2022.

That is over and above the $31.5 billion over a decade that the Liberals have promised to boost transit and transportation infrastructure.