New Deal For Canadian Cities Appears Imminent

At a historic and unprecedented summit federal and provincial members of parliament from the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) met with their municipal counterparts. One plan that they discussed would involve injecting $600 million a year into public transit and $700 million into affordable housing across the GTA. The increased transit funding would be directed towards both operation and maintenance of existing transit systems as well as new capital projects. This could be implemented by tripling the share of gas taxes that are directed to municipalities from the current four cents a litre to twelve cents a litre. To keep the ball rolling on this historic initiative, the participants agreed to meet again early in the new year.