“It’s time for some of those folks [in Toronto city government] to step up and use the revenue tools that they already have.”
—Ontario transportation minister Glen Murray, telling CBC’s Matt Galloway that although the province has announced $15 billion in new transit investment for the GTA, the city will ultimately be on the hook for the ongoing costs of running all that new equipment. Murray is right that the city has some revenue tools at its disposal: it can levy certain kinds of taxes, but the current political environment is hostile to that. Meanwhile, Queen’s Park still hasn’t explained where all of that initial $15 billion is coming from—a clear indication that even premier Kathleen Wynne is afraid of uttering the T-word.
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