Why does everyone take a swipe at Hamilton? It was over 100 years ago that STELCO was created and ever since, the city, the province and our country have benefitted by it. Its steel has helped create and defend our nation. Hamilton is a city built by steel.
It was no surprise that premier Ford did not have the nerve to tell the city that the Light Rapid Transit project, on which the city had already spent hundreds of millions, was losing a billion dollars that was promised in provincial funding.
To add insult to denying the funding, the provincial patsy, transport minister, Caroline Mulroney, fed the news media some Mulroney baloney about the full price being more than $5 billion. This amount was later calculated to include inflation, rough estimates and 30 years of operating costs and maintenance.
This fiasco reminds us of the famous one-stop Scarborough subway that Doug Ford was going to build in Toronto. Somebody should have warned the burghers of Hamilton that Doug Ford is famous for his promises and more famous for reneging on his promises.
Any Ontario resident who knows Hamilton knows that the city is in desperate need of good public transportation. The transit job cannot be done with just buses on already congested roads. You simply cannot reduce car and truck traffic in the city without an effective transportation alternative. Buses only add to the problems.
Caroline Mulroney was sent to Hamilton by Doug Ford to sweet talk the news media into believing that Ford had the city’s best interest at heart. Frankly, it is unlikely that Caroline Mulroney, who was educated and worked previously in the United States, would know where Hamilton was located or anything about the city.
If there was one thing her lackies missed in her briefing, Hamilton is home to a very fine university. It was steel that built that university and you should never think of Hamiltonians as stupid. They are not.
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Copyright 2019 © Peter Lowry
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