Neil Saravanamuttoo, a director of the non-profit CityShapes and expert on public finance, said it wasn’t “fair” to put the blame solely on other levels of government and that the city has to take some responsibility for this crisis.
“For example, putting $500 million into Lansdowne. Is this the time that we want to be spending money on a stadium that, quite frankly, is in perfectly good shape?” he asked.
“So these are the priorities that we’re spending on, and it’s no wonder that we have no money left over to spend on transit, affordable housing or for other priorities like that.”
Lansdowne is an ongoing pain in the city coffers.
I think this sums it up. Lansdowne works, there’s no need to pour more public money into it.
Spending on Lansdowne now seems like a really bad idea. Oh wait, it benefits OSEG, it’s a great idea!
Sutcliffe’s shifting tone comes as he calls out both the provincial and federal governments for a lack of fair funding.
Not surprising. Ottawa is often held hostage to get the Federal government to kowtow to Provincial demands. It wouldn’t be a crazy idea to do what the US did for Washington D.C. and create an exclusive Federal jurisdiction for our capital as well.
No one could have seen this coming!
