Step up for the city

There was a lot to like in this week’s Ontario budget: free prescription drugs for young people; more money for the health care system; thousands more affordable child care places.

But the Wynne government has fallen short in one vital area — meeting the needs of the province’s largest city.

The budget contains no significant new money for Toronto’s biggest priority: transit. And, most strikingly, it failed to come through with the province’s expected share of funding to fix the city’s dilapidated stock of social housing.

Mayor John Tory has been pressing Queen’s Park for months to do more for the city, especially after Premier Kathleen Wynne vetoed his plan to raise money for transit by tolling two major expressways.

This budget certainly won’t ease tensions between the city and the province. On Friday the mayor accused the government of “turning their backs” on Toronto and, even allowing for the usual hyperbole, he had a strong case to make.

The most obvious omission in the budget involves public housing. The province failed to live up to a commitment it made three years ago to fund one-third of the $2.6-billion repair bill faced by Toronto Community Housing.

The province’s share amounts to $864 million over 10 years — but it was nowhere in Finance Minister Charles Sousa’s budget. Without it, TCH will be forced to close 1,000 housing units by the end of next year because they are unfit for habitation. It predicts that number will reach 7,500 over the next eight years.

That’s unconscionable when 181,000 Torontonians languish on the waiting list for subsidized housing. While they wait, some are forced to pay rents so high they can’t afford to buy enough food or take transit. Others are homeless.

The provincial and federal governments must step up and provide much-needed money for the repairs if this debacle is to be prevented.

On transit, there was also disappointment for Toronto. Transportation Minister Steven Del Duca argues the province is already investing billions of dollars in Toronto transit, including money to build the Eglinton Crosstown and Finch West LRT lines, and to expand GO Transit service.

All that is true, but as Tory pointed out Queen’s Park must continue to add funding to make up for “decades of inaction.”

Not getting additional money from the province threatens the planned downtown relief line, Waterfront transit and the Eglinton East LRT projects.

The case for funding Toronto’s key priorities is overwhelming. The city is the economic engine of the province. Yet its growth and attractiveness for investors is being undercut by traffic congestion made even worse by the failure of governments to fund and build transit alternatives.

The cost of gridlock in the region, for example, was estimated way back in 2006 to amount to $6 billion a year in lost worker productivity, slower commutes, higher accident rates and insurance costs, as well as air pollution.

All this is well-known, so it’s all the more disappointing to see the province come up short on funding. Tory admits that without provincial money the city won’t be able to complete its priority projects.

The budget doesn’t have to be the last word from the province on funding for Toronto. On housing and transit, in particular, the government still has a way to go.

The Wynne government’s budget falls short in one vital area — meeting the needs of the province’s largest city