Premier Doug Ford’s government plans to introduce legislation Thursday that would upload responsibility for future Toronto subway projects to the province, a decision that comes while talks with the city about Ontario’s controversial plan to take over the rail network are ongoing and have not yet yielded an agreement.

Speaking at a Toronto Region Board of Trade event Wednesday morning, Transportation Minister Jeff Yurek said the subway legislation would be included in a larger bill that would also address road safety and regulatory reform.

If passed, the Getting Ontario Moving Act “would give us the legislative tools to upload ownership of future subway expansion projects to the province so that we can get them built quicker,” Yurek said.

“The people of the GTHA have waited long enough for an integrated regional transit system that extends outside Toronto city limits to the growing communities across the region,” he said.

“This is our government’s plan to get people moving.”

The legislation would give the province responsibility for “building, developing and planning” new subway expansions, according to the minister, but wouldn’t grant it ownership of the existing TTC subway network.

The Progressive Conservatives have previously said they intend to introduce a law next year to take over existing city-owned subway infrastructure. The TTC would continue to operate the lines and collect fare revenue.

While the province argues it could use its greater financial and regulatory power to ensure new lines are built faster and at less cost, city council has voted to register its position that breaking up ownership of the TTC network would be detrimental to transit service and the subway should remain in municipal hands.

The province has the authority to take over the network, however, and council agreed in December to enter into talks.

The province’s plan to introduce legislation before those talks have concluded was seized on by critics who argue the Ontario government hasn’t been negotiating in good faith.

Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam (Ward 13, Toronto Centre) said Yurek tabling legislation this week would violate the terms the city and province agreed would guide the upload talks. The terms stipulate the two sides will consult the public and report to council and the provincial government before making final decisions. She called on Mayor John Tory to break off the discussions.

“I think it’s time for the mayor to grow a backbone. Everything that the mayor had been promised, including consultation, has been tossed out the window,” Wong-Tam said.

“The mayor is leading us down this rabbit hole, with Doug Ford leading him down first. Someone’s got to put the brakes on this really bad idea.”

Councillor Brad Bradford (Ward 19, Beaches-East York), who has aligned himself with the mayor on some transit issues, said Yurek’s announcement risked further eroding the relationship between the city and province that was already strained over issues such as Ontario’s recent cuts to public health funding.

“It’s too fast, it’s too soon and it’s not something that we’ve frankly been fairly a part of,” Bradford said of the upload legislation.

Speaking to reporters at city hall, Tory said the talks should continue, and reiterated his position that participating in the discussions was the best way to ensure the city’s voice is heard.

“If you’re not at the table then you have no chance to register your concerns, short of standing in front Queen’s Park shouting at the building,” he said.

“And so we’re there, discussing in earnest with the provincial government how we can all get transit built — as much transit as possible, as fast as possible, for the lowest possible price. And I think that is a discussion well worth having.”

Tory said he didn’t believe the province’s legislation would violate the upload terms of reference. He noted the Ford government had repeatedly stated its intention to introduce such a bill this spring, and said his understanding was the legislation wouldn’t immediately transfer responsibility of new lines to the province, but merely enable Queen’s Park to take over if they wish. Asked for clarification about the mayor’s remarks, a spokesperson for the transportation minister said the bill “is intended to allow the province to upload responsibility for delivery and ownership of specific new projects.”

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“A lot of it is going to be pursuant to agreements that they might reach or not with us, and to regulation,” Tory said.

“So I think we should just kind of stay calm, stay at the table, keep talking to them.”

Should the province’s legislation on new projects pass, negotiations with the city would shift focus to Ontario’s proposed takeover of the existing subway. Yurek said those discussions would likely be complicated and take some time to resolve.

Ford’s government has said uploading the subway network is critical to enabling construction of the $28.5-billion transit plan the premier unveiled last month. The plan focuses on four projects, including adding two stops to the Scarborough subway extension and replacing the city council-approved relief line subway with a lighter and longer rail project called the Ontario Line.

The plan also includes extending the Line 1 subway across Toronto’s northern border to Richmond Hill, and building a below-ground extension of the Eglinton Crosstown LRT through north Etobicoke.

Ontario’s plan doesn’t include projects council had previously voted to prioritize, including the Waterfront LRT and Eglinton East LRT into Scarborough.

The province’s blueprint would significantly alter projects the city had already been pursuing, and council has yet to endorse Ford’s new map. Critics at city hall have cited a lack of information from the province about the proposal as a major stumbling block.

Much of those concerns centre on the $10.9-billion Ontario Line, which the province says would be twice as long as the relief line but could be completed at least two years sooner, by 2027, using an as-yet-unspecified alternative transit technology.

Critics have also warned Ford’s plan would delay new projects. The city’s one-stop version of the Scarborough subway extension was scheduled to open around 2026, but the province says its three-stop version, which would extend the project past the Scarborough Town Centre to Sheppard Ave., would open sometime before 2030. Adding the stops would also increase the cost from about $3.9 billion to at least $5.5 billion.

City staff are conducting an assessment of the province’s plan and are expected to report to council in June.

In a statement, Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said the upload legislation amounts to “a hostile takeover of TTC subways.”

“Doug Ford is ripping up all progress made on TTC transit expansion, causing years of delays and wasting hundreds of millions of already-spent planning dollars — and now he’s plowing ahead without even listening to the people who built, paid for and use the TTC subway system,” she said.

Ford has said his government would contribute $11.2 billion to the $28.5-billion transit plan and called on the city to make its own contribution — while also claiming Ontario would pay for the whole thing if no other funding materialized.

The city has already spent more than $200 million planning the four lines the province wants to take over. Yurek said the government intends to repurpose “as much as possible” of that work to execute its transit plan.

Ben Spurr is a Toronto-based reporter covering transportation. Reach him by email at bspurr@thestar.ca or follow him on Twitter: @BenSpurr

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