[URBAN NOTE] Has Harper just doomed Ford's TTC plans?

[rfmcdonald]

The ongoing mishandling of the growth and investment plans of the TTC by Mayor Rob Ford, who does favour growth and investment but favours the wrong sort of growth and investment strategies, has just involved the federal government, too, and in a surprising way. Ford and Prime Minister Stephen Harper might be presenting themselves as bosom ideological friends, but Harper's government seems unwilling to help Toronto out with TTC funding.

Mayor Rob Ford was incorrect when he told the premier that the city needed $650 million from the province for the Sheppard subway to access $333 million from Ottawa, a federal spokesperson said Thursday.

The Harper government already intends to give the city the $333 million, said Vanessa Schneider, spokesperson for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities Minister Denis Lebel. The province would need to be a “partner” in any funding deal, she said, but would not necessarily need to contribute $650 million.

The $650 million in provincial money and the $333 million in federal money were tied together only under the former Transit City agreement to build light-rail transit (LRT) on Sheppard, Schneider said. Ford abandoned that agreement in favour of his subway plan.

“Basically, the conditions of the LRT agreement no longer exist,” Schneider said in an interview.

Under Transit City, the province was to pay two-thirds of the $1 billion cost, the federal government one-third. Ford policy director Mark Towhey told reporters Wednesday, as Ford apparently told Premier Dalton McGuinty, that this precise arrangement was generally required by the Building Canada federal infrastructure fund.

That is not true, Schneider said.

While she said other levels of government must contribute to all projects paid for with fund money, she said the specific amount of provincial assistance needed for Sheppard was up for discussion.

“Each project is worked through on a case-by-case basis,” she said.

A senior Ford official acknowledged he was “not an expert on the Building Canada fund,” but he rejected any suggestion that Ford had misled McGuinty.

Even after he was informed of Schneider’s comments, he said he still believed the existing fund “requirement” demands that the province provide $650 million. He said he now understands that, “in exceptional circumstances,” fund money can be activated with as little as a simple “match” by the province — in this case, $333 million.

Even that concession, however, may not be accurate. Fund rules say only that the federal government cannot provide more than 50 per cent of a project’s cost. The rules do not say Ottawa’s contribution to a project can never exceed Queen’s Park’s.

This surprises me. Is Harper abandoning Ford, judging that saving money by avoiding a precedent of federal government bailouts for municipal transit systems outweighs the benefits of having Ford as an ally? (But then, does Ford have any other choices at the federal level?) And will this kill the transit project entirely? And what will an Ontario provincial government non-contribution do to the Liberal Party's prospects in the provincial election due at the end of the year?