By JONATHAN JENKINS AND DON PEAT, TORONTO SUN
No money, no problem.
Mayor Rob Ford’s office shrugged off Premier Dalton McGuinty closing Ontario’s wallet to a request for more cash.
Ford’s press secretary Adrienne Batra said the mayor sent the letter asking for $350 million in provincial cash for the city as part of the province’s pre-budget consultation process.
“The city provided the province with a list of projects where provincial funding would be beneficial,” Batra said, after McGuinty turned down the request when speaking with reporters earlier Monday. “Fortunately the 2011 budget is balanced, so we weren’t relying on this funding which has been the practice in the past.”
McGuinty seemed to have taken to heart Ford’s oft-repeated campaign quip that Toronto has a spending problem, not a revenue problem.
“It’s up to them to chart their own course,” McGuinty said. “I understand and can sympathize with their financial challenges, but I ask the folks at City Hall to recognize that we have financial challenges as well.”
The refusal was underlined by McGuinty’s finance minister Dwight Duncan.
“All governments have difficult choices to make,” Duncan said. “They don’t lend themselves to eight-second sound bites. There’s a big difference between talking about something and then actually dealing with it.”
Ford’s request came in a letter to Duncan dated Jan. 25, in which he lays out what the city would like to see in the upcoming provincial budget.
The wish list includes $48.3 million for road work, $89 million in capital projects for the Toronto Transit Commission, $5 million for the Fort York visitor centre and $11.5 million in childcare money.
He also asks for 50% of the TTC’s annual operating subsidy.
The fact Ford’s letter leaked out is a sign of bad blood between the province and the city, Tory MPP Peter Shurman said.
“I’d say there is no love lost between the two,” Shurman said, promising a Progressive Conservative government would review the funding relationship between Ontario and its municipalities.
“We’ll see to it that the various levels of government are properly funded,” Shurman said.