robmausser said:
Trudeau and the feds could also match teh $1 billion or inject other funds into the project too. Thats a possibility.
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Hamilton's "Maximum Transit Allocation" of the 2018 Investing in Canada funds is $204,382,601.

That's about all they can expect from the feds; scaling the pot up across the country to fit Hamilton isn't politically viable, though Calgary might not complain (their LRT struggles for funding too).
 
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Allandale25 said:
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This is essentially an article to follow up on those tweets. Some of the damning pieces from the article:

'Whoever has consulted the province on this has made a gigantic mistake,' says Joseph Mancinelli

The Laborers' International Union of North America (LiUNA) is having its investment arm, contractors and engineering firms crunch numbers to challenge the province's $5.6-billion estimate for Hamilton LRT, says international vice president Joseph Mancinelli. It will take about a month.

Once LiUNA has its own numbers, he said, "we want to go back to them and make them understand the potential they have here."

LiUNA has had the ear of Premier Doug Ford in the past. The union backed Ford last year, and Ford has attended numerous LiUNA events and rallies.

Some 5,000 workers from LiUNA Local 837 were expected to work on construction of the 14-kilometre line, which was scheduled to be in operation in 2024.

LiUNA offering new estimates "will make all difference," said Keanin Loomis, president of the Hamilton Chamber of Commerce.

Mulroney said the province hired a third-party after "proponents in the market" sounded the alarm to her about how much the project would cost. That wasn't the case with other LRT projects, she said, so there were no studies of those.

Metrolinx has spent $165 million on Hamilton LRT, including buying about 65 properties. Three consortiums were submitting bids to design, build, finance, operate and maintain the system.
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I was waiting for industry to make a move. Too many players from consultants, labourers, construction firms, and developers, were invested in this project for it to not.

If I were LiUNA, in their number crunching on the project, I would also have a team on the side work on drafting a projected return on investment through induced development activity and future tax revenues calculated as well.
 
IMO this whole charade is probably a political play for federal funding, albeit in a hostage-holding manner, just like Francophone university and other things Ford has crudely cancelled and then brought back (or like the RER stations that died and were reborn as privately-funded stations).

Quebec is hoping for a 40% federal funding split after meeting with Trudeau, and there’s no reason why Ford wouldn’t want the same split now.

Chances are that the LRT will be back on track a year or two from now. There will be some symbolic cost-cutting (made easy by the faked numbers), but some transit line will be built on the current alignment.
 
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If I was Trudeau i would let Ford own this one 100% and let him suffer the direct consequences of his stupidity. Why would I go step in, bail Ford out of his clown decision and pump more money into an infrastructure project that a provincial government deliberately screwed up because they felt like it.

It would make no sense whatsoever politically to do it, so he wouldn't have any interest in doing so. He wouldn't be getting any credit for making that move.
 
We’ll see- I think that municipal leaders will be putting pressure on MPs, and TBH, Ford tends to end up owning the political fallout regardless (like on his other cancellations)- to most people, the Feds can only come out looking like heroes.
 
jje1000 said:
We’ll see- I think that municipal leaders will be putting pressure on MPs, and TBH, Ford tends to end up owning the political fallout regardless (like on his other cancellations)- to most people, the Feds can only come out looking like heroes.
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On the French University, one Ford wound up looking pretty good - getting the feds to chip in.
 
Amare said:
If I was Trudeau i would let Ford own this one 100% and let him suffer the direct consequences of his stupidity. Why would I go step in, bail Ford out of his clown decision and pump more money into an infrastructure project that a provincial government deliberately screwed up because they felt like it.

It would make no sense whatsoever politically to do it, so he wouldn't have any interest in doing so. He wouldn't be getting any credit for making that move.
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I understand why, but the problem is, all major transit things seem to only be about politics and not what the people need. Somehow we need to break the cycle.
 
BurlOak said:
On the French University, one Ford wound up looking pretty good - getting the feds to chip in.
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I still think he took the brunt of the blame, especially with the MPP leaving- it was almost like returning to the project was a act of “defeat” (even if they got a better deal in the end).

Ford will always be known as the guy who cancelled the university- not the guy who got the feds to chip in for the university.

Will be interesting to see how Hamilton’s leaders will try to appeal to the Feds for sure.
 
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^ That's kind of a cynical and narrow take, in my opinion. The AG examines a broad range of issues and Ministries. Of course it won't literally change things over night but it can provide another perspective with information that can inform a public debate, people running for office, or help the public understand the costs for transit projects. So, it might not immediately change anything but it may have an impact, the findings will be covered, so it's hard to predict that some form of change might result in it. What if a future candidate reads the material and is motivated to reference it in the future or think about it when deciding on a transit project? What if a junior reporter sees the results and it helps their career at covering issues like this in the future? There are lots of possibilities. The Eglinton West Subway was cancelled in 1995 and the other parties still cite it and reference it.

Also, the AG's office is an office of the legislature. They already had jobs before this and will so afterwards so I don't think the reference to keeping people employed is really relevant or interesting as part of the Hamilton LRT thread. But that's my two cents.
 
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