Even if Rob Ford is legally allowed to change the Metrolinx game plan, he’d better not take away one cent of transit funding for the rest of the GTA, warns Mississauga Mayor Hazel McCallion.

“If Transit City is cancelled it throws the Metrolinx program completely out of whack,” McCallion told the Star after a general committee meeting Wednesday, where the implications of Ford’s decision to throw out a previously approved transit plan for Toronto were addressed ahead of an upcoming Mississauga council workshop with Metrolinx.

“I give (Ford) all kinds of credit if he can implement his promise to build all underground without funding from the province and federal government that would impact other communities —Durham, York, Halton, Peel. If the province has to allocate the money to go underground, it has to impact the projects in the other regions,” McCallion said.

“What Mr. Ford wants to do, contrary to what Metrolinx wants to do, with the limited amount of money available — I don’t want funding to go all the way underground in Toronto to interfere with the other regions.”

As for Ford’s legal authority to scrap the approved plan, “council rules supreme,” McCallion said. “I asked our (city) lawyer, Mary Ellen Bench, and she agrees, unless there is a special bylaw or powers under the Toronto Act that allow him to (override) council.”

But it’s ultimately Mississauga’s transit needs that concern McCallion most, as the city’s population continues to mushroom.

“We need to move people and products across the GTA. We’re going to be going to the province for funding for the Hurontario LRT as soon as we’re ready,” she said.

The proposed LRT will be the first in Peel Region, running north from the lakeshore through the heart of Mississauga into Brampton, along the region’s main arterial route.

“Metrolinx knows my position on funding,” McCallion said, “and Mayor Ford is aware of it.”

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