Toronto Progressive Conservative MPPs are misleading their constituents over the size of āmassiveā Ford government cuts to public health and other services, Mayor John Tory says.Tory made the accusation Monday morning, reacting to a story in which the Star canvassed most of Premier Doug Fordās Toronto caucus about deep budget cuts for public health, child care and more that the city manager says will cost Toronto at least $178 million this year alone.Funding specifically to provide subsidized child care for low-income parents, is taking a $65-million hit, jeopardizing more than 6,000 daycare spots, the city says.āThereās no truth to saying thereās going to be 6,000 child care spots closed,ā Willowdale MPP Stan Cho told the Star last week, supporting the Ford cuts. āWeāve only asked them to cut administrative costs.āTory, whom Cho praised as a good mayor, bristled at that statement. Toronto spends about 6 per cent of its child-care budget on administration, well below the provincial 10-per-cent threshold, he said, and would agree to find ways to reduce it to 5 per cent if the other cuts were cancelled.Fordās MPPs āare not being straightforward in acknowledging that ... they imposed massive additional cuts on child care on top of thatā request to reduce overhead, the mayor said.āThat`s why we`re going to continue to go door by door and street by street as we get organized to say āEven your own representative, unfortunately, has not acknowledged that they`ve imposed big cuts, tens of millions of dollars on child care.āāTory is leading an escalating pressure campaign on Ford and his MPPs to cancel the cuts imposed without notice and after Ontario cities had already passed 2019 budgets relying on provincial funding.They mayor denied itās a personal beef between him and Ford, whom Tory beat in the 2014 mayoral election. Tory noted he has the support of other may ...
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