When The Agenda had a debate about Toronto Mayor Rob Ford's first year in office in late October 2011, Karen Stintz seemed an obvious choice to defend Ford's record.

Less than a year before, Ford and his allies made her Chair of the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC), an important role in and of itself, and especially crucial given that the Mayor had decided to cancel his predecessor's Transit City light rail project in favour of a new plan that buried all new transit tracks underground. Underground rail is more popular, but it's also more expensive to build. So the new plan's tradeoff was more underground rail, but a lot less track overall. (For a comparison of the various proposed projects, click here.)

But in the months that followed our broadcast, Stintz concluded that Ford's new transit plan was unworkable and found her compromise proposal rejected by the Mayor's office.

So on Wednesday, in a stunning rebuke to Rob Ford, she led council in the passing of a new plan which essentially resurrects the Transit City light rail network.

Many are calling Stintz courageous and principled for publicly opposing the Mayor's plan, which many experts had criticized as far inferior to the Transit City plan. Ford loyalists and supporters are accusing Stintz of disloyalty and grandstanding.

Whatever Torontonians think of Karen Stintz right now, watching last October's debate today is decidedly odd:

A week is a lifetime in politics.