Comrade Miller Campaigned On His Relationship With Martin & McGinty

Repeat after me: Toronto is a special case, Toronto is a special case...

Posted: August 17, 2009, 4:02 PM by NP Editor
Filed under: Full Comment,Kelly McParland

Oh dear.

The Toronto Star is concerned that Mayor David Miller's city council, having lost a silly game of chicken with Ottawa over Toronto's share of the stimulus spending, may miss out on the swag.

Toronto is a special case. [Ed note: Isn't Toronto always a special case? Isn't that one of the foundations of Canada, that Toronto exists within Confederation as a permanent special case?] Its proposed projects lag well behind those of other cities after Mayor David Miller attempted to pressure Ottawa into paying for new streetcars using the infrastructure fund. When that pitch was rejected, Toronto had to apply again, submitting a list of hundreds of possible projects several weeks late.

Most other municipalities are further along in the process, having received approval for their plans. They are still waiting, however, for signed funding agreements spelling out, in detail, what they are being given and under what conditions. Each individual project requires its own agreement, so this stage is expected to take some time.

That pretty much sums it up. By messing around with the process, Toronto blew its opportunity to get in early on the gravy train, and now it looks like the recession is ending before most of the spending even begins. What happens if Finance Minister Jim Flaherty gets it into his head that the money isn't as badly needed as he thought, given that the economy is righting itself anyway, and starts saying no to a lot of projects? Whatever will Toronto do?

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