Feds to provide $750M transit funding top-up to municipalities: Freeland
Posted February 17, 2022 12:30 pm.
Last Updated February 17, 2022 3:21 pm.
The federal government says it will be offering a one-time $750 million top-up of transit funding to municipalities hard hit by COVID-19 pandemic operating shortfalls.
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland made the announcement while providing an update on the government’s ongoing efforts to stop nationwide COVID mandate protests on Thursday.
Freeland said the money would be contingent on two requirements; provincial and territorial partners must match the funding, and provinces must work to “speed up actions to improve housing supply,” Freeland said.
She didn’t provide any further details.
Toronto Mayor John Tory warned last month that without more financial support, the City might have to cancel more than $300 million in planned transit and repair projects in 2022.
Tory said the City’s 2022 budget contains a $1.4-billion COVID impact “with most of the shortfall coming as a result of lost TTC revenue from low pandemic ridership.
Tory acknowledged that Toronto has received more than $2.8 billion in COVID-19 relief funding from the other levels of government over the last two years but said the pandemic dragged on longer than expected, and more help is needed to plug a massive 2022 budget hole.
