Mayor Tory is talking tough about the provincial government of Kathleen Wynne. He is demanding, more or less, that the Liberal government sit down with him and make a plan for funding now that the Premier has shut down Toronto’s plan for rod tolls. Tory said Monday he and Wynne spoke “constructively” about the issue during a meeting at Queen’s Park early in the day. Later he said the road tolls dispute had changed the dynamic of his conversation with the premier. “Last week, the nature of our City’s understanding with the province fundamentally changed. Those events meant that it couldn’t just be business as usual. Toronto City Council took a clear position on our chosen path forward and put forward a plan to pay for the projects our citizens badly need. Denied the power to make those investments, the province now needs to do more for Toronto and for its nearly three million citizens,” Tory said. Just what he can expect remains unknown. As generation Canadians learned in school: “The cities are the creatures of the provinces.” That sums it up. Ms Wynne can do — or not do — whatever she wants. There is political risk of course.
