Toronto city council approves SmartTrack funding plan

City council voted Tuesday to approve a multi-billion dollar funding agreement to pay for Mayor John Tory's SmartTrack transit plan.

The decision followed hours of intense debate at city hall, with several councillors raising questions about how much the transit expansion will cost taxpayers in the future. However, the mayor said the yes vote — made just weeks before a deadline from the province — means work on the project can begin sooner.

• Executive committee approves transit-funding deal between city, province

• Toronto proposes property tax hike to pay for SmartTrack, other transit, report says

"People will see the transit getting built," Tory said at city hall ahead of council approving the plan.

"It's going to make the biggest difference the soonest."

Ontario is set to contribute some $3.7 billion to the SmartTrack project, and set a Nov. 30 deadline for the city to agree to funding its share of the costs — about $2 billion for six new SmartTrack stations and the Eglinton West LRT.

That figure is contingent on $1.2 billion in assumed contributions by the federal government, as well as $470 million in assumed contributions from Mississauga and the Greater Toronto Airports Authority.

Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie, however, hasn't committed to her municipality's share of the costs at this time.

In addition to a 2.1 per cent property tax increase, the plan outlines other options for the city to shoulder its share, including tax increment financing (TIF), development charges, tax-supported debt financing and other measures.

Move to delay vote fails

Council voted down a motion, introduced by Coun. Janet Davis, to defer a vote on the funding plan by a margin of 32-11.

Vote it down if you want, but don't defer it.- Coun. Denzil Minnan-Wong

​Coun. Josh Matlow, who spoke in favour of the deferral, asked fellow councillors how many of them could truly answer how the city would pay for future transit projects. Coun. Kristyn Wong-Tam also backed the deferral, saying that while the supports spending on transit, there are too many unanswered questions when it comes to the new plan.

Coun. Josh Colle said the deferral was just an attempt to kill the SmartTrack plan hatched by councillors who don't like it.

Colle said councillors have been given plenty of details about the plan and said there will be ways to keep an eye on costs in the future.

Coun. Denzil Minnan-Wong also blasted the idea of delaying a vote on the funding proposal.

"Vote it down if you want, but don't defer it," he told council before the vote.

'Limited capacity'

Following a short presentation of the plan by city manager Peter Wallace Tuesday morning, councillors had several questions for city staff. 

Coun. Giorgio Mammoliti asked which transit projects in the report could be funded without the city raising taxes or fees. 

"Right now, we have limited capacity to build new transit lines without new sources of funding," a staffer told Mammoliti. 

The councillor then wondered how he could be asked to vote in favour of a plan when the revenue streams to pay for it remain unclear, including how taxpayers would shoulder the costs.

He later told reporters that residents should be allowed to vote on whether or not taxes should go up to pay for the SmartTrack plan. He anticipates they will vote no.

"I don't get how you can pay for something without any money," Mammoliti said.

Davis echoed Mammoliti's concerns, asking Tory during the debate about previous remarks in which he said he would not commit to transit projects when the costs and funding plans have not been decided.

Tory acknowledged that it's not ideal for councillors to vote on a plan before they can consider how to raise revenue to pay for it. But he noted that city staff will issue reports within the next two weeks, at which time he will make clear which revenue measures he supports.

'We had a choice'

During a break for lunch, Tory told reporters that the reason for the tight deadline is the fact that the province has to put out its proposal call to build stations as part of its own regional transit plan. The city saves time and money by piggybacking on that process, the mayor said. 

"So we had a choice: we could be in the proposal call and include our six stations [for SmartTrack] and get on with picking someone, or we could be out of the process," Tory told reporters.

He said the plan calls for residents to pay "15 cents on the dollar" of a multi-billion dollar plan, "a very fair deal."

According to the city manager, because tax increment financing can't be relied upon to fund the plan fully, the shortfall calls for a 2 per cent property tax increase if other revenue streams can't be found.