ROB FORD - Spendaphobe
RadioTMI - July 16, 2014

I know there are few fans of Rob Ford left out there and this might be beating a dead horse, but the thinking behind his statements is not limited to him, it's systemic throughout every level of what we call Conservative these days.

The example is this:
Rob Ford is against building an LBGT Youth Centre and claims it's not because he's homophobic, instead he says it's because he's "spendaphobic" and it would cost money the city can't afford.

Now assume for a moment that's true. Just pretend...

Rob Ford also wants to cancel the Scarborough LRT and replace it with Subways. The estimated cost per kilometre to build an LRT? $85 Million. The estimated cost per kilometre to build a subway? $325 Million.

And because they take longer to build subways have the highest rate of cost overrun projections at 1:1.6 so the true cost would be more likely $500 Million per kilometre.

But even without the overruns the difference in cost between 1 kilometre of LRT and Subway is enough to set up 158 LBGT Youth Centres in Toronto, or 7 per neighbourhood, and then run them for 10 years.

But Rob Ford is a spendaphobe. We know this because he says so.