Crystia Freeland Takes a Dump on Toronto

 

So, there was a derailment on the Scarborough Light Rail Transit line last Monday.  

The TTC says it is bringing in external experts to review what caused a Scarborough Rapid Transit train car to derail Monday, with the transit agency even considering shutting the line down permanently — months ahead of its scheduled decommissioning.

Five of the 45 people onboard were hurt when the rear car separated from the rest of the train and derailed just south Ellesmere Station. Stuart Green, spokesperson for the TTC, said Tuesday the injured people were treated for "severe bumps and bruises" and taken to hospital as a precaution.

The advanced age of the equipment is a possible culprit:

"The damage was significant. We need to know exactly what caused it. Was it something to do with age? Something to do with infrastructure? Was it the vehicle? All of that is under investigation," Green said. "At this point we just don't know what caused it."

It's a testimony to the years of neglect caused by decades of under-funding, that really kicked into high gear when Liberal Party of Canada Paul Martin as finance minister under Jean Chretién implemented massive cuts in federal spending, including transfers to the provinces for all sorts of programs.

These transfer payment cuts allowed right-wing governments to pursue their own hard-right, neo-liberal agendas.  One result of this is that Toronto has been suffering years of insufficient revenues to fund the services that got dumped on it by Paul Martin and Mike Harris.  Whether it's Dalton McGuinty, or Kathleen Wynn or Druggy Fraud, it hasn't mattered about Toronto's crumbling public housing or roads or the TTC.

So, new Toronto mayer Olivia Chow asked Deputy Prime Minister Crystia Freeland to restore federal funding to help Toronto manage its perennial budgetary crisis.  Freeland said that Chow should ask Ontario Premier Druggy Fraud. Freeland probably knows that Chow did ask Fraud (who is sitting on a $10 billion surplus) and Fraud is ponying up some dough.  But Fraud being Fraud, it isn't enough and Torontonians will be the ones who suffer.  Instead of doing the decent thing, Freeland sanctimoniously lectures Chow (and the people of Toronto) with the following garbage:

"The ability of the federal government to spend is not infinite — and the emergency support we provided during the pandemic led directly to the excellent fiscal position that the province of Ontario currently enjoys," Freeland writes in the letter to Chow. 

I don't want to let Druggy Fraud [note: I'm obviously referring to Doug Ford here] off the hook.  He is hoarding $22 BILLION over the next few years that he will use to cut taxes and pay off debt.  Stupid things that do nothing to address the myriad crises facing the province as a result of his and his fellow neo-liberals' shit-headdery.

But Freeland can waste $8 billion on the nazis in Ukraine (her political soul-mates) and the war that they provoked as the Biden administration's tools.  And she can find $4.5 BILLION - $30 BILLION to bail-out the Royal Bank and other Bay Street vermin when their tarsands pipeline investments were about to go bust.

Crystia Freeland made a splash by writing a book about inequality when Thomas Piketty's Capitalism in the 21st Century was a huge best-seller and the Occupy Movement's condemnations of "The One Percent" was resonating around the globe.  All that reveals about Freeland now is that she's a savvy opportunist.  Another amoral psychopath who can mask her narcissism with the illusion of compassion.  And that illusion is all that separates people in the Liberal Party of Canada from the troglodytes in the Conservative Party of Canada.