Mississauga fumes over $470 million Toronto LRT funding assumption
Toronto wants its neighbour to pay a share of $470 million for LRT plan.

TheStar.com
Nov. 2, 2016
San Grewal

Mayor John Tory and senior city staff are being condemned in Mississauga after Toronto made public a $470 million LRT funding expectation of the local airport authority and Mississauga — without telling officials in the neighbouring city.

“Mr. Tory, we’re not going to pay for your wall,” Councillor Jim Tovey bellowed during a committee meeting Wednesday, comparing the Toronto mayor to Donald Trump, who expects Mexico to pay for a border wall it doesn’t even want.

Tovey joined a chorus of staff and council voices expressing outrage that Toronto would publicly reveal plans to get Mississauga to pay for part of Tory’s Smart Track plan, without even asking if the city supports the idea.

“There has been no request of us,” said Mississauga mayor Bonnie Crombie. After the meeting, Crombie, Tovey and Mississauga city manager Janice Baker voiced their incredulity over the note in a public report from Toronto’s city manager this week that assumes Mississauga and the Greater Toronto Airports Authority (GTAA) will fund $470 million toward the extension of the Eglinton West LRT into Mississauga and Pearson airport. The report assumes a $1.18 billion contribution from Toronto, and a $822.9 million contribution from the federal government toward the $2.47 billion cost of the Eglinton West LRT extension.

“That is just a crazy number in our world,” Baker said of the $470 million, acknowledging that it’s unclear how much of the money Toronto expects Mississauga to pay and how much the GTAA is expected to contribute.

Baker said Mississauga’s current infrastructure and capital costs for planned projects — funded primarily by the city’s property tax base — wouldn’t be sustainable if Mississauga had to pay even a small portion of the assumed amount.

Asked to respond to the anger voiced inside Mississauga City Hall Wednesday, Tory replied through spokesperson Keerthana Kamalavasan. “The Mayor has a close and productive relationship with Mayor Crombie. . . . City of Toronto staff have been in contact with their colleagues in Mississauga about this important project.”

Kamalavasan said a “formal request” will now be made of Mississauga council to gauge “their interest” in extending the LRT project to Pearson airport.

After the Mississauga committee meeting, Crombie didn’t sound particularly congenial.

“Let’s call it a non-starter,” she said, referring to the surprise funding request. “Finding out from the newspaper is not what I call ideal.”

Crombie and Baker said they have no idea how Toronto reached the $470 million figure and what actual benefit the LRT line, to run primarily along Eglinton Ave. in Toronto, would have for Mississauga taxpayers. The Toronto report shows one possible stop on the Toronto-Mississauga border just south of the airport and two other possible stops in lands controlled by the GTAA.

Toronto city manager Peter Wallace was asked why details of the $470 million funding expectation were not shared with Mississauga officials before his report was made public this week. He was also asked how the figure was reached and what analysis was done to ensure Mississauga would only be asked to pay its fair share.

City spokesperson Wynna Brown responded in an email: “The City Manager’s report does not request $470 million, but requests the City of Mississauga and the GTAA to formally, through their Council and Board respectively, to indicate whether they are interested in this extension from Renforth to Pearson.”

The GTAA didn’t answer directly when asked if the authority knew of the $470 million funding assumption before Wallace’s report went public. “The (GTAA) welcomes the recommendations released…by City of Toronto staff regarding priority transit lines,” read a statement sent to the Star.

Crombie told the Star it makes little sense to release a dollar figure to the public without any real idea of how the $470 million was calculated. “If they know how that figure was reached and how they determined the fair cost for Mississauga, they didn’t tell us before making the ask.”

Regarding how the dollar figure was reached, Brown said it is a “high order estimate,” describing it as a “placeholder estimate until more detailed design can be undertaken in partnership with the City of Mississauga and GTAA.”

Tovey was concerned, given recent controversies in Toronto about transit expansion, including the debate over whether to build a subway or an LRT extension to Scarborough.

“This could be potentially unfair to the taxpayers of Mississauga,” said Tovey, who along with other councillors called on provincial transit agency Metrolinx to step in and take over negotiations between Toronto and Mississauga.

Metrolinx told the Star that the provincial ministry of transportation and Metrolinx “are working with the municipalities and GTAA. Decisions will not be made on the project until funding is committed.”

Baker said the LRT might not even connect to the airport, if Toronto has to rely on Mississauga for funding.

“We have our own transit priorities. We have to look at the Dundas (St.) corridor, how we are going to provide increased transit on our lakeshore, and we have our own Hurontario LRT to think about.”