Will Ottawa sign on to Toronto and Ontario's new deal?
CBC
This week, city councillors will dig into the new deal Toronto reached with the province, but experts say questions remain over whether Ottawa will provide billions more in financial relief.
Mayor Olivia Chow set the stage for this week's council debate at a recent Executive Committee meeting. Council must now endorse the terms of the deal and direct staff to execute it.
That will also involve passing on an expensive list of requests — totalling $2.7 billion — to the federal government, which is not a party in the new deal. However, hundreds of millions of dollars that Ontario has committed to Toronto are contingent on Ottawa contributing matching dollars.
"So, you've heard this before, and you're going to hear it again," Chow said last week.
"We are needing the federal government to step up. If the federal government doesn't step up, we are still in trouble."
Chow and Ford announced the new deal at Queen's Park late last month, unveiling a package of spending commitments to help Toronto. Key to the deal is Ontario's upload of the Gardiner Expressway and Don Valley Parkway, which could provide up to $6.5 billion in spending relief to the city over the next decade.
The province has also promised to spend $758 million on new subway cars and $600 million over three years for shelter support. That funding is contingent on matching dollars arriving from the federal government.
The deal makes a number of pointed requests of the Trudeau government, ranging from more funding for flood protection in East Harbour to wiping out the city's debt from 2022 COVID-19 expenses. The term sheet also requests $853 million in support for asylum seekers and refugees and $675 million to build more beds in the city's homeless shelters.
"I'm sort of mystified that Doug Ford has come to the city's rescue but the federal government, which tends to be a lot friendlier towards Toronto, is still missing an action," said John Filion, a former councillor.
"We need a lot more from the federal government," Filion said.
"Toronto's the largest city in Canada. The federal government needs to be more involved."
The federal government was at the table as an observer over the past several months, as Toronto and Ontario hammered out this deal, said former councillor Joe Mihevc. He sa says it could be difficult for Ottawa to not make a contribution.
"I think it would be politically unwise for the federal government not to follow suit," he said.
Even this freshly inked deal may not be enough to motivate Ottawa, said York University public policy professor Zac Spicer. Targeted funding to support refugee settlement could be in the cards, he said, but that might be all.
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