It's a case of putting the horse before the buggy in Toronto as no money in the coffers may mean no new fancy Bombardier streetcars in two years.
The problem is that when the TTC and Bombardier got the contact all together the only thing missing was the money to fund the project. Oops.
This isn't high school where Junior can ask Daddy for a few extra
million to go to the dance.
Come on I am sure that the TTC has a spare $1.2 billion laying on the tracks hidden away. With only 60 days to find those bills there just may be a bit of a problem.
The price on the table with Bombardier goes away on June 27. If they aren't happy they can just walk away or they can tell the TTC to cough up more money.
Premier Dalton McGuinty says that those funds weren't in the budget planning. So where's the money? The
Toronto Sun reports:
"It would have been helpful had we had a better understanding ... a more comprehensive list of their priorities," McGuinty told reporters yesterday.
The folks that could soon be working at the
Thunder Bay Bombardier plant hope it can be found.
The
Globe and Mail reports:
Photo by wyliepoon
Subway cars, Toronto's TTC
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“I heard the news, I was in Waterloo, ‘Oh the city have said they’re going to do the contract with Bombardier.’ And in the next breath I heard we were paying for it. So that was a bit challenging,” George Smitherman, Ontario’s Minister of Energy and Infrastructure said April 28 at an event on the revitalization of Regent Park, with Mr. Miller just steps away. “I’m little bit perplexed… I’m not really accustomed to operating in an environment where you have an announcement about the acquisition of a product and the entering into of a contract, absent of the financial resources to do that.”
It's not like the TTC is asking for all the money. So far the
piggy bank has $9 million in it. So asking for the one-third rest shouldn't be a problem, should it?
