Mayor Matt Brown says he should have chosen his words differently when he implied in a media interview that London’s rapid transit plans were fully funded.
“I think I used the term ‘absolutely.’ What I should’ve said is, ‘Absolutely, this is a perfect fit,'” said Brown.
His comments follow an announcement by the federal government last week that they were committing $204 million to transit initiatives in the city.
“From everything that I’ve seen related to our business case and this funding for transit, I think there’s great alignment,” said Brown.
That doesn’t mean the funding is ready to be applied to BRT, said London North Centre MP Peter Fragiskatos.
“It will only be funded if a review of its business case finds that its assumptions, its plan, all of those necessary things rest on a sound foundation,” said Fragiskatos.
- B.C. First Nations explore if nuclear power could meet province’s electricity needs
- Hoekstra says Trump serious about tariff threat over wildfire smoke
- Ontario PC MPPs who spent big on hotels face questions as minister resigns
- 2 Saskatchewan research farms to stay open as province enters MOU with Ottawa
Get breaking National news
“You can’t simply hand out money for projects without conducting a thorough review,” he said.
“We have not even received a business case to review yet.”
The process isn’t completed yet, says Brown, and realizes his earlier comments may have implied it was.
“The federal government has opened their phase two funding process… What we’ll do is formally apply for that program, just as we did for phase one,” said Brown.
“I think we’ve got a really solid business case,” he said.
Brown is confident the project will get the required funding.
London has already secured $170 million in funding from the province while the city has committed $130 million to the plan.
Comments
Comments closed.
Due to the sensitive and/or legal subject matter of some of the content on globalnews.ca, we reserve the ability to disable comments from time to time.
Please see our Commenting Policy for more.