Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, facing a huge budget hole in 2012, is off to Queen’s Park on Wednesday morning to meet with Premier Dalton McGuinty.

The offices of the Conservative mayor and Liberal premier, whose early, wary détente has given way to partisan hostility, were mum Tuesday about topics on the agenda for the 8:45 a.m. sit-down.

Ford asked for the meeting. A senior provincial government source said he is “looking forward to hearing what (Ford) has to say.”

Ford is on record asking the province for more than $150 million in specific projects, including roadwork and increased child care subsidies, plus half the TTC’s $429 million annual operating costs.

Since the mayor’s February request, the city has plunged into 2012 budget deliberations, with Ford floating the possibility of deep service cuts and staff layoffs to erase a projected shortfall of between $443 million and $774 million.

Ford, a provincial and federal Conservative, seemed to be finding early common ground with the Liberal premier after McGuinty agreed to revise the provincially funded Toronto transit expansion plan and acted on council’s request to make the TTC an essential service.

But after McGuinty rejected Ford’s funding request, the mayor told a radio host: “If they choose not to help us, then I have no other choice but to get out, as I call it, Ford Nation, and make sure they’re not re-elected in the next election.”

Last month, as the Ford administration was buffeted by gaffes and public backlash to proposed spending cuts, senior provincial Liberals told the Star they hope to capitalize on the mayor’s fumbles in the Oct. 6 provincial election.

Ford, who has had trouble finding private-sector money for his promised Sheppard subway extension, is expected to try to deliver Toronto seats now held by Liberal MPPs to the Ontario Progressive Conservatives.

Deputy Mayor Doug Holyday said he doesn’t know what’s on Wednesday’s agenda, but noted Ford wouldn’t be the first Toronto mayor to go to Queen’s Park asking for cash to help balance the budget.

Holyday said transit money is one possible request, along with funding to help get homeless residents into shelter.

Councillor Shelley Carroll, the budget chief under former mayor David Miller — who sometimes balanced the budget with a cash injection from Queen’s Park — said she would ask McGuinty for only one thing.

“It’s what council directed — ask all three parties that, if they should hold office after Oct. 6, they return to the tradition of the province paying half the operating budget of the TTC,” Carroll said.

“Right now, we’re expanding transit and we have no idea how to pay the operating costs once it’s built.”

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The other roughly $215 million would be funded equally from the city tax base and the fare box, she added.

With files from Tanya Talaga

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