Ford tells Ontario mayors to ‘take a page out of Toronto’s book’ on housing projects

The Ford government has handed the City of Toronto more than $100 million to spend on infrastructure projects as an incentive for meeting and exceeding the housing targets set for the city by Queen’s Park.

The money was announced at a joint press conference at Toronto City Hall on Thursday, with both Mayor Olivia Chow and Premier Doug Ford at the podium.

“I’m pleased to announce that Toronto has knocked it out of the park,” Ford said. “Matter of fact, mayor, that ball is still going.”

The premier said Toronto had broken ground on 50 per cent more houses than it was told to by the province. As a result, the city has been given $114 million from the province’s Building Faster Fund, money that can be spent on “housing-enabling and community-enabling” projects.

Chow said she was getting “housing back on track” and had shaken up staffing at city hall to reduce administrative delays.

“Toronto has exceeded our provincial housing target by miles,” the mayor said.

The province said Toronto broke ground on a total of 31,656 new housing units in 2023, exceeding the goal by 51 per cent. Part of the $114 million is a $38-million boost for the city exceeding its goals.

Toronto is the first of several municipalities Ford is set to visit to hand out money from the Building Faster Fund. The program, announced in August, is worth $1.2 billion over three years.

Cities that meet or exceed 80 per cent of their targets are eligible for money from the fund. Money left in the fund at the end will then be offered to all cities, including those that already received a boost from it.

Ford asked other mayors to “take a page out of Toronto’s book” and increase their housing supply.

“If I had 444 municipalities hitting their targets (with) over 51 per cent that this mayor has done, we wouldn’t have a housing problem,” the premier said. “We’d hit over 1.5 million homes.”

Ford also singled out Mississauga which, he claimed, shrunk in size while Bonnie Crombie was the mayor and relished the opportunity to take a shot at the new provincial Liberal leader.

“Bonnie Crombie failed,” Ford said. “She had the lowest housing starts in all of Ontario, that’s unacceptable.”

Crombie issued a statement of her own, saying that while she was mayor, Mississauga introduced significant new density in the city’s downtown core and approved gentle density in neighbourhoods.

“We accomplished all of this despite the complete lack of leadership from Doug Ford’s Conservatives, who have failed to act on the recommendations of the provincial government’s own housing task force, and are behind on their own housing targets,” Crombie said in a statement.

The province has also faced questions about why housing starts have been used as their metric to measure whether a municipality has been successful.

Mayors have vocalized their frustration with the province, pointing out that while municipalities approve projects they don’t develop properties.

Housing Minister Paul Calandra said while the province has been focused on “shovels in the ground” the money is a reward for municipalities that have met their building targets and shouldn’t be considered a “punishment” for those that have yet to reach their quota.

Calandra did not directly address whether housing starts, which is defined as the stage when concrete is poured for the project, is the best way to measure a municipality’s success.