MPP says he's concerned about life of Bombardier streetcar contract

An area MPP says it’s not too early to ring the alarm bells now that Toronto mayor-elect Rob Ford has requested to kill a TTC light rail contract the local Bombardier plant is working on.

"I’m absolutely concerned about it," said MPP Bill Mauro (Lib., Thunder Bay-Atikokan) Thursday morning. "There’s a huge impact on our local plant."

There are still two or three other contracts going forward for the local Bombardier plant that wouldn’t be affected by Toronto axing the $1.2 billion light rail contract, but as an avid supporter of the project, Mauro is worried a lot of hard work may come undone.

The contracts are in place, Mauro added, noting that if the City of Toronto did pull out of the deal there would be significant financial penalties.

"I guess we’re going to find out in short order exactly what it is he’s able to do or wants to do," said Mauro. "We had a lot of discussions about this already and we’re hopeful this turns out to be a bit of a smoking gun and nothing more."

MPP Michael Gravelle (Lib., Thunder Bay-Superior North) said wants to see the contract continue on, adding it’s an important and significant contract, one the province poured millions of dollars into.

"Our commitment remains solid in terms of the transit city priorities but with a new council there will be some discussions going on the next weeks and months," he said, stating that Ford is only representing his point of view on the issue.

"This is a matter that will need to be deal with by the Toronto city council themselves; it’s a 44-member council," he said. "I don’t want to suggest what decision they will ultimately make … we need to recognize that with the new administration they sometimes have different priorities."

Thunder Bay Chamber of Commerce president Harold Wilson echoed Gravelle’s comments about Ford only being one vote.

"What I really think we need to do is to be contacting the councillors who are still there because there was a lot of support there," he said. "So much effort went into outlining the rational and why it was a great decision to have Bombardier get the contract. I think before people start to get overly concerned with this, let’s go back to those arguments. The rationale is just as good now as it was then."