The feud between Ontario’s Progressive Conservative government and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberals escalated further on Monday, with both sides accusing the other of playing political games to block funding for major Toronto transit projects.

At a news conference at Queen’s Park, Ontario Infrastructure Minister Monte McNaughton and Transportation Minister Jeff Yurek urged Ottawa to step up and commit conditional funding for the Ontario Line, the $10.9-billion transit project Premier Doug Ford unilaterally announced two months ago. The proposed 15-kilometre line through the heart of Toronto is one of four projects Ford has pitched as part of a $28.5-billion expansion of the GTA’s rail network that would replace the city’s previous council-approved plans.

McNaughton said he was concerned Trudeau found it more “politically expedient” to engage in a war of words with the province than to actually fund new projects.

“Prime Minister Trudeau wants to pick a fight. Instead he should pick up a shovel,” he said. McNaughton called on Trudeau to “quite frankly put his money where his mouth is” and “approve these projects so the people of Ontario can benefit.”

Yurek said Toronto transit users are tired of being stuck on overcrowded vehicles and the province was committed to working with the city to get the Ontario Line built.

“Now it’s time for our federal partner to commit their support. It’s in all of Ontario’s interest to get more cars off the road with better transit, that is what Ontarians deserve,” he said.

The ministers’ comments came less than five months before an anticipated federal election that will pit Trudeau’s Liberals against the Ontario PC’s federal cousins in the Conservative Party of Canada.

The news conference also followed remarks Trudeau made Friday at a gathering of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities in Quebec City, in which he accused provincial politicians of going “out of their way to block federal funding” for infrastructure projects “just to score political points.”

In an email to the Star on Monday, Brook Simpson, a spokesperson for Canada’s Minister of Infrastructure and Communities François-Philippe Champagne, said the Ford government hasn’t provided Ottawa the necessary information about the Ontario Line and other projects for them to win federal approval.

“As Ministers McNaughton and Yurek well know, real applications and business cases are needed in order to get federal approval and we hope they follow up soon. We are not in the business of writing blank cheques with public funds when so many questions remained to be answered as to how the funds will be used,” Simpson said.

Simpson disputed the ministers’ assertion that the federal government had committed funding to transit projects in other parts of the country that were at similar levels of planning as the Ontario Line.

McNaughton and Yurek cited an extension of Vancouver’s Millennium Line in NDP-governed British Columbia that has received federal support, but Simpson said in that case the province submitted “complete business cases” to support its funding proposal.

“This is exactly how the process should work under these bilateral agreements and we encourage the Ontario government to formally submit complete transit project applications as B.C. did,” Simpson said.

The Ontario Line would replace previous city plans for a relief line subway. Like the earlier version, the Ontario Line is intended to take pressure off the TTC’s overcrowded Line 1, but it would be roughly twice as long as the 7.4-kilometre first phase of the relief line and would connect the Ontario Science Centre to the vicinity of Ontario Place.

The Ford government says it could build the Ontario Line by 2027, at least two years sooner than the projected opening of the relief line, by constructing it above ground in some sections and using smaller trains than traditional subways. Little design work has been done on the line to date however, and cost and schedule estimates have yet to be finalized.

A city report released Monday stated the “conceptual plans” the province has presented for the Ontario Line “have some positive aspects,” but municipal staff would need to assess the project further before making a recommendation to council about whether to endorse it. A report is expected back by the end of the year.

The Ford government says it wants the federal government to pay up to 40 per cent of the cost of the project, or about $4.4 billion, while also asking Ottawa to provide the same share for the other three other projects in Ontario’s plan — a Yonge North subway extension, three-stop Scarborough subway extension, and Eglinton West LRT — for a total federal contribution of up to $11.4 billion.

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Last year Ottawa pledged $4.9 billion to new Toronto transit lines, but the city and province have agreed to earmark a substantial portion of that funding for projects that aren’t part of the plan Ford announced in April.

Despite the provincial minister’s comments Monday, correspondence obtained by the Star suggests that behind the scenes the federal government has signalled it would be open to providing funding for Ontario transit projects before detailed plans are finalized.

April 30, 2019 letter from federal deputy minister of infrastructure View document on Scribd

A letter dated April 30, 2019 from the federal deputy minister of infrastructure to her provincial counterpart stated that “in the event that approval of federal funding is required before a final business case can be developed,” the government of Canada could provide money for projects through a “stage gate” process.

Under this phased process, Ottawa would help pay to advance a provincial project’s design, and make funding to build new lines contingent on future submission of a full business case.

In the letter the federal government posed more than two dozen questions to the province about the “readiness” of the Ford government’s proposed transit projects, and requested responses to “allow Infrastructure Canada officials to determine an approximate timeline for approval.”

The questions, which resemble a list of 61 queries the City of Toronto put to the province in April about Ford’s transit plans, seek basic information such as how long it will take to finalize full or preliminary business cases for projects, how the province’s proposed projects meet policy objectives, and how Queen’s Park calculated its cost of the new lines.

A spokesperson for McNaughton said the province wrote back on Friday, and stated its intention to prepare initial business cases for its priority transit projects by the end of June.

When the premier unveiled his new GTA transit map in April, he pledged the Ontario government would shoulder the full cost of the $28.5-billion plan if no other levels of government came forward.

Yurek said Monday “that hasn’t changed,” but argued there’s no reason Liberal MPs shouldn’t support the Ontario Line.

“Their own constituents are going to benefit from this investment,” he said.

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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