Toronto Mayor John Tory isn’t wasting any time working with the province in his new gig.

On his first day on the job, Tory met with Premier Kathleen Wynne at Queen’s Park to talk transit, housing and other issues.

“Although we didn’t come to any final conclusions or decisions today, we’re very clear that we’re going to have regular meetings,” Wynne told reporters at a news conference Monday morning.

Tory said officials from the City of Toronto and Metrolinx are already working together to integrate Tory's multibillion-dollar Smart Track plan into the provincial transit agency's regional express rail and will continue to do so.

Tory's $8-billion plan for a GTA surface subway depends on current GO Transit lines and provincial funding over the next several years.

From the province's perspective, Wynne said the Liberals see SmartTrack as “very much part of the discussion around regional express rail.”

But, “we don’t have the details of exactly how those will mesh at this point,” she added.

Tory made it clear he plans to continue with both an extension of the Scarborough subway – one of his campaign promises – and SmartTrack.

SmartTrack proposes to use GO infrastructure for 90 per cent of its track, to be delivered and operated by Metrolinx and to use the same fares as the TTC. The plan is for it to operate on the Stouffville and Kitchener GO lines, looping through Union Station and branching westward at Mount Dennis.

Previously, many commentators and journalists have pointed out that SmartTrack lines up closely with the GO Train electrification project the provincial government already announced, though many questions have been raised about the engineering feasibility of some parts of SmartTrack and the controversial tax-increment funding mechanism, where the financing comes from fees on future development stimulated by the project.

The provincial government has committed $29 billion in transportation funding over the next decade. Tory has promised his SmartTrack proposal would cost $8 billion in total, with the city contributing one third, and would be operating by 2021.

Both leaders touted the other’s ability to work with other levels of government, and Wynne said she’d continue to work to engage the federal government. Since September, Wynne has written Prime Minister Stephen Harper two letters asking for a meeting.

“I believe that when all levels of government are working together, we make the best decisions for the people of the province, the city and the country,” she said.

After their meeting, Tory committed to working with the provincial and federal governments on housing projects. Wynne agreed, pointing to a need for national strategies around housing and infrastructure.

“These are not issues that only Toronto or only Ontario are grappling with,” she said. “These are issues that provinces across the country are grappling with, municipalities across the country are grappling with.”

This meeting between Wynne and Tory comes after the premier refused to meet with former mayor Rob Ford about the ice storm that hit Toronto in December last year, instead saying she would only meet with then-deputy mayor Norm Kelly, whom took on many of Ford’s responsibilities when he was stripped of some of his powers by council after admitting to using crack cocaine.

While Wynne said she could not pre-empt the conversations that would take place between her and Tory, she would work with Toronto’s mayor to make sure their priorities are aligned.

“If the communication is better, I think there’s much more potential that more can get done,” she said.

After the meeting, NDP Leader Andrea Horwath questioned Wynne's socially progressive reputation, saying “actions speak louder than the words.”

“What I can’t figure out is why a Liberal premier who professes to be so left and progressive supported a Conservative mayor who’s obviously put a Conservative team around him and is going to be working on a Conservative agenda,” she said. “I just don’t get that, but I guess we’ll see what happens in the future.”

Wynne and Tory talk transit and housing, but no decisions made

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