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With only one week left to reach a $1.2-billion streetcar deal for Toronto, the city and the province are pulling out all the stops to bring the federal government on board.
The full-court press intensified yesterday, after Premier Dalton McGuinty announced his government`s one-third share of $416-million – matching a city pledge made last December – for 204 streetcars to replace Toronto`s aging fleet between 2012 and 2018.
Now the political spotlight falls squarely on the federal government, which has yet to confirm whether it will or won`t put up funds for the final one-third of the project by June 27. That`s the drop-dead date for the Toronto Transit Commission to sign a contract with the winning bidder, Bombardier Inc. of Montreal.
"The contract can only be signed with full funding," said Michael Hardt, vice-president of services for Bombardier Transportation North America. "We all know the deadline, and know the effort that all funding partners are putting in to make it happen."
If the deal dies, the TTC would have to retender at a higher price and risk delays in completing the largest streetcar project in North America.
Yesterday, flanked by a jubilant Toronto Mayor David Miller at the Thunder Bay assembly plant that would build the streetcars, Mr. McGuinty told a cheering throng of workers he is "optimistic" about Ottawa`s buy-in.
"We have some time and we will do everything that we can to convince, invite, prod, provoke, cajole, encourage, whatever we might, to encourage the federal government to come to the table," he vowed.
Mr. Miller added that "this project is too important to let it fail. I am confident, like the Premier is, that it will go ahead and I think we will have an ally in Ottawa."
He refused to speculate, like others, on the consequences of a flat-out no from Ottawa.
Read the full article here.
For more information, please see the attached document.
The full-court press intensified yesterday, after Premier Dalton McGuinty announced his government`s one-third share of $416-million – matching a city pledge made last December – for 204 streetcars to replace Toronto`s aging fleet between 2012 and 2018.
Now the political spotlight falls squarely on the federal government, which has yet to confirm whether it will or won`t put up funds for the final one-third of the project by June 27. That`s the drop-dead date for the Toronto Transit Commission to sign a contract with the winning bidder, Bombardier Inc. of Montreal.
"The contract can only be signed with full funding," said Michael Hardt, vice-president of services for Bombardier Transportation North America. "We all know the deadline, and know the effort that all funding partners are putting in to make it happen."
If the deal dies, the TTC would have to retender at a higher price and risk delays in completing the largest streetcar project in North America.
Yesterday, flanked by a jubilant Toronto Mayor David Miller at the Thunder Bay assembly plant that would build the streetcars, Mr. McGuinty told a cheering throng of workers he is "optimistic" about Ottawa`s buy-in.
"We have some time and we will do everything that we can to convince, invite, prod, provoke, cajole, encourage, whatever we might, to encourage the federal government to come to the table," he vowed.
Mr. Miller added that "this project is too important to let it fail. I am confident, like the Premier is, that it will go ahead and I think we will have an ally in Ottawa."
He refused to speculate, like others, on the consequences of a flat-out no from Ottawa.
Read the full article here.
For more information, please see the attached document.