Ottawans will pay for TTC: Tories

Transit upgrades in Toronto, Hamilton will be partly funded by voters, party warns

Ottawa South voters could be forced to pay for improvements to transit in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton area if the governing Liberals get their way, warned Progressive Conservative MPP Frank Klees during a campaign stop Monday in support of the riding’s Tory candidate Matt Young.

This, despite Premier Kathleen Wynne’s repeated assertions that taxpayers in other parts of Ontario will not be asked to cover the estimated $2 billion in transit upgrades designed to ease the gridlock in the province’s largest city.

Klees also suggested that there are “major infrastructure challenges in Ottawa” that are not currently being addressed because the provincial government is so focused on the GTHA.

“My understanding is there are a number of projects that have been on the table, that have been delayed,” he said.

He did not name any specific examples. “Everything I’ve heard is there are some significant needs here in terms of the gridlock that Ottawa is facing. Every time you defer a project for another year or another two years, you allow the problem to get worse,” Klees said during a press conference in front of the Greenboro O-Train station.

But the chair of the city’s transportation committee couldn’t name any major transit projects that have been left languishing due to a lack of provincial investments.

“We’re always happy to advocate for more funds for the city, but I’m curious as to what projects he thinks are not being done,” said Keith Egli, the councillor for KnoxdaleMerivale.

Ottawa has already secured $600 million from the province for lightrail transit, which is in the preliminary stages of construction, as well as approximately $200 million for widening the Queensway between Nicholas and the split and $16.6 million to ease congestion by enhancing the entrance to Baseline Station.

The city is also anticipating a warm response from the province when it requests financial support for extending light-rail to the west, Egli said. “The province has been pretty good to us.”

Still, at the last transportation committee meeting, councillors directed city manager Kent Kirkpatrick to “get as much as he can” whenever he is approaching other levels of government for funding, particularly if other municipalities are receiving more than one-third of project funding from the province.

When asked what proof he had voters here could be on the hook for transit upgrades elsewhere, Klees leaned on partisan campaign rhetoric.

“The proof that we have is the track record of this Liberal government, of saying one thing and doing another,” he said.

“My question to the people of Ottawa South: Why believe this Liberal government? We have not been able to believe a word they’ve said over the last number of years.”

Young, the PC’s candidate in the Aug. 1 provincial byelection, said people in Ottawa South are “relatively well served” by transit.

But more could be done, and sooner. “We can’t complain,” he said. “Most people in the city don’t have a train so we’re doing well on that front.

“At the same time, we’d love to see it extended east, west and south because we’d love to get the cars off the roads because they’re already overburdened, but it’s going to take 30, 40 years before we do that because we’re underfunded here in Ottawa.”

Given the cash-strapped province’s current fiscal situation, Young said the PCs would find two per cent in efficiencies in the province’s $128-billion budget in order to fund transit upgrades without raising taxes.

‘The proof that we have is the track record of this Liberal government, of saying one thing and doing another. My question to the people of Ottawa South: Why believe this Liberal government?’ FRANK KLEES Conservative MPP

Killing the Green Energy program and the Local Health Integration Networks (LHINs) are two examples of inefficiencies he offered.

Young’s Liberal opponent John Fraser said Wynne made it clear at several points during a visit here last month that Ottawa taxpayers won’t be on the hook for Toronto transit.

“I don’t know how much more clear she could be,” Fraser said.