politics
Duly Quoted: Rob Ford on Toronto Community Housing
This week in Ottawa, the mayor will ask for matching repair backlog funding from other levels of government after all.
“We’ve achieved a great deal at Toronto Community Housing. It is 100 times better than it was three years ago…We’ve shown our commitment to resolving this issue; now we need our federal and provincial partners to do the same.”
—Rob Ford , speaking at City Hall about the Toronto Community Housing Corporation and his intention to ask other orders of government to provide matching repair backlog funding at the Big City Mayors’ Caucus this week in Ottawa. Just one month ago, during city council’s budget debate, the mayor and his brother and campaign manager Doug were the only two members of council to vote against asking other orders of government to provide matching funding for TCHC’s repair backlog—he said at the time that he didn’t want to frustrate the federal government with requests.
Before now, Ford has been a no-show at the Big City Mayors’ Caucus that takes place at the annual Federation of Canadian Municipalities conference—and he’s been clear about his lack of interest, saying in 2012, “I don’t go to FCM. Since when do I go to FCM?” Despite his claim that TCHC is now 100 times better, during his mayoralty the repair backlog has grown by over $200 million to $864 million, the wait list for units has increased by 19 per cent from 76,000 to 90,000, and the Ford-backed CEO, Gene Jones, has faced multiple scandals, including ones involving offering housing repairs for crime tips, an investigation into questionable hiring practices, and an alleged $150,000 severance given to an executive who’d been there for four months.