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Last week, Toronto region media reported that Mississauga’s new mayor had declared that a major infrastructure project was impossible unless the Ontario government paid 100% of the cost. Existing infrastructure needs, financial pressures and a campaign promise by newly elected mayor Bonnie Crombie to hold tax increases to the rate of inflation apparently leave Mississauga unable to chip in.

It seems like no one had even bothered to even talk about who would pay before now

The project in question is a light rail transit line, the Hurontario LRT, through the heart of Mississauga and into the downtown of neighbouring Brampton, another fast-growing Toronto suburb. It would run for 23 kilometres, form a high-order transit backbone for the bus-based transit systems of both cities and cost an estimated $1.6-billion. The project is popular among local residents and has (or had, perhaps) the political support of all relevant players.

And Mississauga now says it can’t throw any money into the hat to make it happen.

That’s bad, of course. But what’s worse is how it seems like no one had even bothered to even talk about who would pay before now. When announcing that it would not pay, Ms. Crombie and Mississauga’s city planner, Janice Baker, didn’t sound like they were breaking an agreement so much as floating a trial balloon. Well, gee, we’re not sure we can really pay our share, guys, they seemed to be saying. Is that going to be a problem?

A cynic might snort and say, hey, that’s politics. Ms. Crombie and Ms. Baker are probably just giving the provincial money tree a shake to see what comes loose. The problem, however, is that it seems their uncertainty about who’s on the hook for the tab is honest. Metrolinx, the provincial agency that is theoretically planning and co-ordinating a major buildout of transit across Greater Toronto, didn’t have much of a reply ready when Mississauga said it couldn’t pay.