EDMONTON - The Harper Conservatives are at long last getting fully behind funding mass transit in big cities, but their previous lukewarm support could still bite them hard in Edmonton.

The Conservatives have only recently woken up to the fact that LRT isn’t a frivolous, impractical luxury. It’s a basic necessity for a big city. How else are tens of thousands of city residents going to get around quickly without clogging up already jammed streets with more costly and polluting vehicles?

The Harper Conservatives have evidently made the calculation that support for LRT could be an electoral difference maker in many federal ridings in big cities. As a result, they’ve just announced major funding for new lines across Canada: $2.6 billion for Toronto, $1.5 billion for Calgary and $1 billion for Ottawa.

This bold support from a new, dedicated federal mass transit fund would normally be good news for Conservative candidates in Edmonton. They could say that after careful review, the government concluded LRT is indeed the way to go, hence the whole hog support.

The sticking point is that when the Conservatives were more iffy on LRT, which essentially means right up until a few weeks ago, they only agreed to pay $400 million of Edmonton’s $1.8-billion Valley LRT line to Mill Woods. That’s just 22 per cent of the cost of the line, whereas the new funding promises in Calgary, Toronto and Ottawa see the federal government paying 33 per cent. Edmonton is out about $200 million on the deal.

The Conservatives now head into the October federal election with federal Liberal candidates such as Coun. Amarjeet Sohi and Karen Leibovici and others quite rightly complaining that Edmonton hasn’t been dealt with fairly.

Edmonton has long pushed for 33 per cent funding of the Valley line, says Coun. Dave Loken, adding it’s disappointing other cities received this sudden federal funding, but not Edmonton.

“It’s bewildering given that Edmonton is the economic engine that it is and the capital city of Alberta. I think we’re the ‘It’ city in Canada right now. Everyone seems to be coming here. So why were we left off that list? That’s just astounding to me.”

One line of defence for the Conservatives has been to point out Edmonton doesn’t deserve more LRT money right now, not until it shows it can get the NAIT line up and running. This point was made by local conservative power broker Vitor Marciano, the Wildrose party’s senior adviser and press secretary, who said on Twitter: “Let’s get the lines we built running before whining about (funding) next line.”

Marciano’s remark will resonate. People are justifiably angry with the bungled construction of the Metro Line to NAIT. That said, if we were to follow Marciano’s logic, we would also have to chop any new funding to roads and bridges just because there’s been equally alarming fiascos and delays on building the Walterdale and Groat bridges.

Huge mistakes have been made, but that doesn’t mean we’re not in need of more bridges, roads and LRT lines. The city has built all three with few hiccups in the past and will do so again, but only if city council can get the necessary and often complicated financing in place.

There is a way out of this sticky situation for the Conservatives being floated by Mayor Don Iveson. The entire Valley Line is planned to run out past West Edmonton Mall, costing $3.2 billion in total. The city’s new bargaining strategy is to argue that the federal government should in all fairness come up with $1.07 billion for its 33 per cent share of the entire $3.2-billion line, which would mean the feds would agree to pay $667 million out of the remaining $1.4-billion cost.