Ontario Premier Doug Ford agreed Monday that the city of Toronto needs a "new deal" to address its growing financial pressures, but shot down two of the mayor's key requests for how to achieve that.
Mayor Olivia Chow sat down with the premier Monday at the legislature for a meeting that stretched past its scheduled one hour, bringing a message of financial urgency about the city's $1.5-billion deficit. It is a largely structural hole, Chow said, and due to services being downloaded to the municipality.
"The premier and I agree that Toronto is an economic engine - we generate half of the GDP in Ontario - and we also agree that the present financial arrangement is just not sustainable," Chow said.