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The day after the province made a crushing an abrupt announcement, some City of Hamilton councillors say they aren’t going to give up without a fight and they are preparing to battle for Hamilton’s years-in-the-making LRT project.

Ward 1 councillor Maureen Wilson sent an open letter to Ontario’s Minister of Transportation, Caroline Mulroney, demanding that the report that allegedly killed the project, prepared in secret by a third party hired by the province, be made public.

“The content of that analysis and the methodology used in the project assessment are of great interest to me and all Hamiltonians,” Wilson said in the letter.

The Honourable Caroline Mulroney

Minister of Transportation, Government of Ontario



Dear Madam Minister:



I am writing to formally request a copy of the third party analysis of the Hamilton LRT project as referenced by you in your CHML interview with Mr. Bill Kelly this morning. — Maureen Wilson (@ward1wilson) December 17, 2019

“Since the analysis formed the basis of you and your Government’s decision with respect to Hamilton’s LRT I trust you will share it publicly.”

Mulroney says the justification for cancelling the massive transit project — which already has $184 million sunk into it — is that the third-party analysis found that it would cost $5.5 billion as opposed to the original $1 billion estimate.

What the minister seemed reluctant to admit on 900 CHML’s Billy Kelly Show Tuesday (Dec. 17) was that the $5.5 billion figure factored in 30-year operating costs and did not factor in potential revenue.

When Kelly pointed this out to Mulroney, she skirted the issue and responded by saying that if the provincially appointed Hamilton Transportation Task Force comes back with a report that supports LRT construction, echoing the words of her boss from yesterday, they will stand by their $1 billion commitment to Hamilton transportation.

Many, however, have their doubts that the provincial government will stand by this promise.

Later on Kelly’s show, Wilson and fellow councillor John-Paul Danko made an appearance to express their frustration over the province’s decision.

Danko even said the province “essentially cooked the books,” to get the outcome they desired. And an impassioned Wilson asked when governments would stop pedalling their “populist snake oil.”

In her letter to Mulroney, Wilson writes: “I would request a copy of this report by Friday, December 20th. If need be, I will travel into your Office to retrieve the report.”

On Tuesday afternoon, Ward 3 Councillor Nrinder Nann called for an emergency City Council meeting where she plans to introduce a motion that asks the city to “re-commit to use the entire $1.3b promised to build the LRT system, exactly as has already been exhaustively planned and approved, nothing else.”

LRT isn't over yet. We cannot allow 13 years and 70+ votes in favour to go to waste. Join me in calling council and the federal government to move ahead with our LRT as planned. #YesLRT #ClimateAction pic.twitter.com/mX2eDC5T1s — Nrinder Nann (@NrinderWard3) December 17, 2019

Also that: “Hamilton City Council immediately request that the Federal Government commit to a financial partnership with the city to ensure that the LRT project gets completed exactly as planned and approved.”

Photo: City of Hamilton