GTA mayors want federal transit and housing cash

Torontosun.com
Aug. 3, 2015
By Jenny Yuen

GTA mayors are hoping to see the federal election deliver new funding for transit, infrastructure and affordable housing.

Brampton Mayor Linda Jeffrey said Monday the provincial transit authority Metrolinx is now footing the bill to put light-rail transit in her city as part of The Big Move.

But it would be good back-up to have the feds at the table, added Jeffrey, who noted a decade ago there was a transit funding partnership agreement involving all three levels of government.

“We will be having that conversation ... about how we can work together,” Jeffrey said. “It’d be nice to have the federal government there ... We need to plan for 10 years in the future and have other partners at the table.”

Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie added gridlock is costing the GTA’s economy up to an estimated $11-billion a year.

There needs to be a wide-ranging debate about the ideas, plans and action federal party leaders will take to support Canada’s cities, she said.

“During this election, I will continue to press for dedicated and predictable funding for public transit and infrastructure, new efforts to ignite local economic development opportunities to attract job-creating investments and increased support to build more affordable housing,” Crombie said in a statement.

The civic leader added she has been working closely with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) and other big city mayors - including John Tory, of Toronto, Gregor Robertson, of Vancouver, Naheed Nenshi of Calgary and Mike Savage, of Halifax - to ensure local issues are on the national agenda.

“The mayors of FCM’s Big City Mayors’ Caucus have called for each mayor to host a debate with local candidates in their community, and our city council has voted to host a debate during the 2015 federal election with a specific focus on Mississauga,” she said.

Meanwhile, Oshawa Mayor John Henry said he’d like to see more money devoted to ageing infrastructure and provincial and national auto manufacturing strategies.

“Infrastructure is a big problem. The work that we need to do within our communities to even try to play catch-up is huge,” he said. “In Oshawa, the traffic stops in Ajax at the end of the day. We’ve been promised our GO Station in Oshawa and Clarington for a very long period of time and we need to get on with that. We’re all walking the same walk and it’s on those issues.”

Oshawa City Council voted unanimously last week to endorse the FCM to press the leaders of the parties to come together and talk about infrastructure issues and municipality issues, Henry said.

Toronto Mayor Tory was unavailable Sunday for comment, but Deputy Mayor Denzil Minnan-Wong said that he hopes to see more federal dollars for infrastructure.