Wynne acknowledges need for more housing funding but says feds must come to table

Toronto:Premier Kathleen Wynne is acknowledging that governments need to provide more money for housing but she is stopping short of promising to chip in the province’s one-third share of a 10-year, $2.6 billion plan to repair aging Toronto Community Housing buildings.
Wynne met with Mayor John Tory at Queen’s Park on Wednesday morning and told reporter afterwards that housing was a major topic of discussion.
The premier, however, made no promises of future funding, instead suggesting that the federal government needs to come to the table first.“In the conversation that the mayor I had and in previous conversations to be quite frank I have acknowledged that there is a need for more support for housing in this province and that is only going to happen if we work with the municipalities,” Wynne said. “We are only going to be successful if we have municipalities, the province and the federal government working together, though. The federal government has in the past been involved in housing and we need the federal government as a partner at the table.”
In 2013 the city approved the TCHC’s $2.6 billion, 10-year capital repair plan on the assumption that all three tiers of government would split the cost, however to date neither the provincial or federal governments have contributed any money to the program.
In the absence of provincial and federal funding the city has accelerated the awarding of its share of the TCHC repairs, investing $175 million in 2015 alone, however officials have previously warned that the money could run out sometime in 2016.
Speaking with reporters alongside Wynne, Tory said he was “heartened” by the recent discovery of an additional $371 million to put towards the repairs through the refinancing of mortgages.
The mayor added that the money won’t be enough to account for the absence of funding from other governments, though.
“I have said repeatedly that we need the partnership of the other governments to find all the money we need to complete all of the repairs,” he said.