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Toronto Deputy Mayor Norm Kelly says that his office is “exploring” what the Canadian military could do to assist the $75-million cleanup from December’s devastating ice storm.

Kelly told reporters Friday that his office made preliminary calls to “mid-level” representatives at the Department of Defence to see what the military could do to assist the cleanup, estimated to take between six to eight weeks.

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“When I learned from staff it was going to take nearly two months to clear the debris … I thought ‘What would be the next available source of manpower?’ and I think that’s the army,'” he said Friday.

“I think it’s important right now to clean up this mess as quickly as possible. I’m not saying ‘call in the army.’

“It’s exploratory phone calls to see what could be available and what protocol could be invoked to formally request the assistance of the armed forces,” he said. “We’re going to have a lot of debris hanging around for two months… and if we can use the army in one fashion or another to shorten that time and look after our parks to make them safer rather than wait two months to do that, why not look at the options.”