Suck It Up Ottawa City Hall: WHOPPER WATCH

“The federal and provincial governments were supposed to pay one-third of the cost of Stage 1. When the cost went up, they didn’t raise their share proportionately.”

Ottawa Citizen’s Randall Denley on light rail.

Not true oh mighty profit.

I remember doing a one-on-one interview with former premier Dalton McGuinty at the Westin when the first LRT project with Siemens was cancelled and replaced by Alstom with a tunnel added.

That caused delays getting money from the senior levels of government. McGuinty found it perplexing.

“I’ve never had so much trouble giving away $600 million,” McGuinty joked.

In fact, Stage 1 (the infamous Confederation Line) was to be funded with $600 million from the feds and $600 million from Queen’s Park. The city was responsible for everything else. That was the deal the city signed. There’s nothing to be gained by rewriting history except making brownie points with faulty facts.

Denley knows (or he should know) what the original deal was.

The municipality signed it fair and square. So suck it up city hall and act like adults. You bought something and now you must pay for it. Pay your bills and stop crying about it.

That’s how the world works.

Ken Gray

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