Juno News - It's gravy train season in Toronto!

00:00:00.000 it's the gravy train season at least for political leaders of Canada's largest city who never cease

00:00:11.600 to use an election to beg for a handout recently mayor John Tory wrote to all federal party leaders

00:00:18.960 once again asking for bags of cash he wants another 75 million just for this year in covid

00:00:27.040 budget relief funding on top of what he already got and get this 1.5 billion next year to cover

00:00:34.560 all kinds of losses he asked the leaders to commit to a funding partnership with the city

00:00:41.120 to ensure that Toronto continues to be the driving engine of Canada's economy and the nation's

00:00:47.600 economic recovery well we should never overlook the fact that Toronto is indeed the center of the

00:00:54.480 universe let's not forget that the city got a total of more than 1.4 billion from the feds in what was

00:01:04.000 called safe restart funding that came last year and this year but with an election in the wind a variety

00:01:10.560 of federal ministers turned up on Toronto's doorstep over the past months to announce yet more goodies

00:01:17.840 social development minister Ahmad Hussein was here a couple of times with at first 14 million for

00:01:26.080 affordable housing in June he then doubled down triple down quadruple down his efforts in July with

00:01:32.720 another 132 million and just days before the election he pledged another 96 million for black community

00:01:42.160 organizations in April health minister patty had you through 7.7 million into the Toronto drug kitty for

00:01:50.720 more harm reduction efforts and safer drug drug supply well there's nothing like shoring up your support

00:01:58.560 in vote rich Toronto using our tax dollars you might say there's been a kind of symbiotic fiscal

00:02:04.960 relationship between mr torrey and mr trudeau especially during the pandemic

00:02:08.960 torrey even admits that trudeau has been quite good for toronto but i'm wondering if a fiscal

00:02:15.600 conservative leader like aaron o'toole who has an eye on balancing the budget at least some point

00:02:21.120 before we're all old and gray will fall for toronto's constant cries for cash a good fiscal conservative

00:02:29.840 would not especially given toronto council's track record for spending without an eye to the bottom line

00:02:37.520 there's so many examples of ways i could go on for an hour but i'll cite just a few there's the recent

00:02:43.280 decision uh to rename dundestry to appease a few thousand activists at an estimated cost of 7 million

00:02:51.200 i say estimated because whenever the city of toronto gets their hands on some project it goes way over

00:02:57.280 budget take the renovation of union station it was delayed by at least four years was 30 percent over

00:03:04.400 budget and was the subject of more than 17 reports it came in around an obscene 823 million

00:03:14.240 torian council have used covet as an excuse not to tender out construction of the city's modular

00:03:20.240 housing projects these are self-contained units for the homeless that has driven the cost up by at least

00:03:25.920 two and a half times according to one of the competitors in the business who was shut out of the bidding

00:03:32.640 because money money is no object the spendaholics at city hall have opted to put homeless in three

00:03:38.960 and four store hotels at 220 dollars a night this will continue it seems until next spring and not one

00:03:47.440 city staffer has lost their job during the pandemic but i would imagine that that is uh pretty much typical

00:03:55.520 of all levels of government my point is it seems that yet again toronto council has no problem with

00:04:05.520 spending with impunity and begging with impunity someone needs to remind them that there is only one

00:04:14.720 taxpayer you and me

Juno News - August 28, 2021