Premier Doug Ford’s Toronto MPPs will pay a heavy political price if they continue cowardly defending their government’s deep cuts to city funding, Mayor John Tory is warning.“If you can’t rely on the MPPs elected to represent Toronto to have the courage to speak up ... who can you count on?” Tory told reporters Wednesday while unveiling a new City of Toronto website, www.toronto.ca/stopthecuts with a petition so residents can MPPs to reverse the retroactive cuts. If the best Ford and his 10 other Toronto MPPs can offer are scripted “smokescreen” defences, the mayor said, “they’re going to pay a heavy price for that come the next (provincial) election.”Ford’s Tuesday offer of a total of $7.35 million to help large municipalities hire auditors to find efficiencies to offset provincial cuts is a public relations “stunt,” Tory said, that suggests PC MPPs are feeling pressure from residents to stand up to Ford and his “unelected advisers.”“They’re starting to feel some heat from people on this and I think we have to turn that heat up so they understand people are just not going to sit by and watch them mistreat municipalities in this way,” he said.Tory, handily re-elected last fall, vowed to keep escalating his pressure campaign on the Progressive Conservative government until it reverses $178 million mid-year cuts, hitting public health, child care, transit maintenance and more, and sits down with city officials to find efficiencies that don’t hurt low-income Torontonians.Read more: Cuts need to double for Ford government to keep balanced budget promise, financial watchdog saysAnti-poverty advocates shaken by cuts contemplated by Ford governmentSecret document shows how far Doug Ford’s Tories would cut social services — until they were talked back from the brinkThe petition follows letters to Ford’s Toronto caucus members, a speech in ...
|
