Tory sees silver lining for housing in Wynne toll flip-flop
Toronto Community Housing funding was the main topic in their first meeting since Ontario’s premier blocked Toronto tolls.

TheStar.com
Jan. 30, 2017
Jennifer Pagliaro

Premier Kathleen Wynne has recognized the province’s role in fixing crumbling social housing, Mayor John Tory said after their first meeting since her flip-flop on road tolls soured their once-cozy political relationship.

The city's housing understanding with the province has “fundamentally changed,” Tory told reporters at city hall, after he declined to jointly answer questions with Wynne, as has been the custom after their monthly meetings at Queen’s Park. Her surprise refusal last week to pass a regulation allowing Toronto toll the Don Valley Parkway and Gardiner Expressway tested their trust and would have made such an appearance “awkward,” Tory said.

Without all the cash that road tolls would bring — estimated between $160 million and $330 million depending on the toll rate — Tory said he made clear the province must contribute to a more-than-$1.6 billion repairs backlog for Toronto Community Housing.

“I'm encouraged, possibly for the first time since I've been the mayor, that this morning after our meeting the premier acknowledged that the province will have to be a partner going forward with us,” the mayor said.

The acknowledgment itself is significant after years of provincial downloading of social housing costs onto the city. Wynne, Tory said, was not specific on funding contributions. But the mayor said his expectation is that the province match dollars expected from the federal government when a second phase of infrastructure spending is announced sometime later this year. Both governments were originally asked to contribute some $860 million each to the 10-year, $2.6-billion repairs plan. The city itself will have spent nearly $1 billion on repairs by the end of this year.

The Star earlier reported that without more funding, 425 units are slated for closure in 2017 — bringing the total number of shuttered homes to nearly 1,000 with more than 177,000 people on the list for subsidized housing. TCH's CEO Greg Spearn said a unit per day will close in 2018 if more funding is not forthcoming.

At Queen’s Park, Wynne stressed that helping the city meet its affordable housing needs is a priority.

“The mayor and I talked about this in the context of housing dollars and housing is something that we often touch on in our meetings and we agreed that the municipality, the province and the federal government working together as we move into this budget cycle,” Wynne said.

“It is going to be very important for us to make it clear to one another, us to the federal government, municipalities to us, and to the federal government, that we need a three-way partnership on affordable housing,” she said, noting since the Liberals were elected in 2003, Queen's Park has spent $1.1 billion on affordable housing.

Tory confirmed that, as the Star reported Sunday, Wynne’s office has led him to believe Toronto would be getting a boost in gas-tax revenues plus regulations to allow tolling of the Gardiner Expressway and Don Valley Parkway after SmartTrack and Regional Express Rail lines are built.

Tory said the understanding, from September when Wynne told him she wouldn’t block tolls until she called Jan. 18 to do just that, was: “We would have benefited from both gas tax money and from toll money” — a double jackpot for the city.

Asked if Wynne was being honest when she publicly suggested the gas tax had essentially replaced the toll revenue, Tory demurred, saying he wants to fix their relationship.

“I don't think this is about a broken relationship, I know it's not,” Wynne, who had faced a revolt over Toronto’s toll plans from some 905-belt MPPs, told reporters. “This is about a disagreement on a particular issue and I know he's not happy and I understand that.”