From The Liberal Scarf:@andreahorwath @rmarchesempp your unwillingness to have #AdultConversation re #UserFees 4 roads led me to cancel my @ontariondp mmbrshp :0(
— Trevor Haché (@trevorhache) May 30, 2013
Hache twice ran for the NDP in Ottawa-Vanier, and as Policy Director for Ecology Ottawa, a major Ottawa-area environmental organization which he was also a founding member of. (In the interest of full disclosure, I also worked for Ecology Ottawa for several months as a fundraising canvasser.)
Horwath moved the ONDP away from promoting public transit and sound environmental policy in the last election when the ONDP platform included a plank to use your tax dollars to subsidize gas prices for big gas guzzling cars. The ONDP's latest move to shows they continue to reject real models for public transit funding, and it'll be interesting to see how the rump environmental wing of the ONDP handles Horwath embracing the Rob Ford position on public transit.
Wynne's call for "enhanced revenue tools" can be pretty easily mocked as code for higher taxes. But at the moment she is the only provincial leader who seems to be offering a real solution to what everyone agrees is a real Ontario problem (gridlock around the GTA). The others want to pay for transit by summoning the magic pony. And down here in T.O. Rob Ford's entire plan for expanding the TTC has been to wait for the magic pony to show up carrying bags full of money. Mr. Hache's resignation is encouraging in that it suggests that a few politicians out there not named Wynne have realized there is no magic pony.
