Caving in to pressure from Toronto Mayor John Tory and local leaders across the province, Premier Doug Ford has cancelled retroactive budget cuts hitting public health, child care and land ambulance services.

As first reported by the Star, Ford announced Monday he is rethinking the changes that the city of Toronto warned would cost it $177 million this year and put services for citizens in jeopardy.

“We’re a government that listens,” the premier told reporters at a hastily called news conference outside his Queen’s Park office with Municipal Affairs Minister Steve Clark.

Critics scoffed at that explanation, with NDP Leader Andrea Horwath saying Ford’s “my way or the highway” approach over the unilateral cuts for this year has clearly backfired.

“I hope the premier begins treating other levels of government as partners, not punching bags,” said Green Leader Mike Schreiner.

In a letter to cities and towns outraged by the cuts, the premier said he understands as a former Toronto city councillor that municipal budgets were set for the year by the time the provincial cuts were announced in his April budget — but that the need for local governments to find “efficiencies” remains paramount.

“We’re going to give them more time. This is going to be a win for the taxpayers at the end of the day,” Ford said. “We have to send a clear message. We just can’t continue on the status quo.”

He bristled at the suggestion Tory had outflanked him politically by leading a public campaign against the reductions.

“It’s not about one person wins or we win,” Ford said, noting “the world hasn’t come to an end” with his interventions at city hall, such as slashing the size of city council in the middle of the last civic election.

The turnabout comes as Ford’s popularity has plunged in five recent public-opinion polls, which Progressive Conservative sources privately say has alarmed a government that was elected a year ago next week.

Publicly, however, Ford was bullish.

“The only poll that’s going to count is in (three) years and the question’s going to be is this province better off than it was four years prior.”

Ford ducked repeated questions on the tally for his U-turn, and the impact on a deficit that was forecast to be $10.3 billion this year.

Tory thanked the government for heeding a growing chorus of concerns, which included 10 former provincial health ministers worried about the impact on public health programs.

“In speaking with Premier Ford this morning, I reiterated Toronto’s willingness to work with them on what for us has been a continuous search for efficiencies each and every year, with our focus continuing to be on ways we can achieve them without jeopardizing core services our residents expect,” the mayor said in a statement.

“I am hopeful this process will be truly collaborative, and that we will have the time to identify a reasonable number of efficiencies that can be achieved, without having to make cuts to important services.”

The Association of Municipalities of Ontario, representing most of the 444 local governments in the province, credited Ford with taking “an important and difficult step” that will allow more time to find savings.

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“We know it isn’t business as usual,” said AMO President Jamie McGarvey, mayor of Parry Sound.

Monday’s capitulation came after Tory spent Saturday canvassing the riding of Conservative MPP Robin Martin (Eglinton-Lawrence) and a weekend flurry of discussions between city hall officials and Ford advisers.

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Even so, Queen’s Park is leaving one major cut in place: a clawback of an increase in municipalities’ share of the provincial gas tax that will eventually cost Toronto $100 million per year that was earmarked for TTC repairs and maintenance.

Speaking on background, city officials said that cut could be accommodated because it affects Toronto’s capital budget, which allows for long-term borrowing.

The other retroactive cuts that hit Toronto’s operating budget — which must by law be balanced every year with no deficits — was the “nightmare scenario” that had to be scrapped, they said.

Another point of uncertainty is whether Ford will try for deep cuts again in 2020.

Toronto Councillor Joe Cressy (Ward 10, Spadina-Fort York), who chairs the city’s board of health and campaigned against the cuts said Ford has done the “right thing” by cancelling them but warned “we must ensure that future cuts do not proceed.”

With files from David Rider and Francine Kopun

Robert Benzie is the Star’s Queen’s Park bureau chief and a reporter covering Ontario politics. Follow him on Twitter: @robertbenzie

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