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In an interview, Galipeau said the impending election had nothing to do with the funding news. The city only wrote to ask for a funding promise July 9.

“I never make election promises,” Galipeau said. “And there’s no election going on right now … If we’d waited until Oct. 20, that would not have been helpful. If we’d waited until Sept. 15, that would have seemed crass.”

These things take time, Galipeau said. The Conservatives laid the groundwork for the pledge in the last federal budget, which promised money for transit projects on terms that so closely match Ottawa’s plans they could have been written specifically for it.

(The fact the funding promise matches the deficit is a coincidence: the money won’t actually be spent for years.)

Galipeau’s chief rival in Orléans, the Liberals’ Andrew Leslie, pointed out that Liberal leader Justin Trudeau publicly promised support for more rail in Ottawa in February 2014, and the provincial Liberals also did it a year ago.

“Bottom line, this is great news for Orléans,” he said, but chastised Galipeau and the Tories for taking so long.

“I think (Prime Minister Stephen) Harper and his crew are getting a little worried,” Leslie said.

Ottawa’s rail plans are backed by a unanimous city council, which makes the city look as though it has its act together. That’s especially true compared to, say, Toronto, whose council is constantly undoing decisions it’s already made about subways and rail lines. Or Vancouver, where voters just decided against a sales-tax increase for a major transit expansion. Brampton has put off a decision on a new light-rail line that the provincial government is willing to fund completely.

Watson is on vacation, but in a written statement released by spokesman Brook Simpson, the mayor said he’s delighted by the promise.

“I am very proud of the work of all members of council that led to the unanimous approval of the Stage 2 LRT project by council, which strengthened our position to quickly secure this historic funding commitment from the government of Canada,” the statement said. “Today’s federal commitment is in addition to previous indications from Premier Kathleen Wynne and the government of Ontario that they also intend to support the project. I look forward to formalizing these funding commitments so we can move forward with construction in 2018.”

The city’s $3-billion cost estimate does not include further extensions it would like to build to bring rail all the way to Trim Road in the east or to create a spur to the airport in the south. Coun. Stephen Blais, the chair of the city’s transit commission, said those are being talked about separately. Actual construction is several years away, so those could conceivably be added.

“The (environmental assessments) are done but we still need to do the detailed design and engineering,” Blais said. “We’re a long way from being able to go to the market for a procurement.”

dreevely@ottawacitizen.com

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