Toronto's New LRT Vehicles An Example of Smart Decision Making

by John Laforet
posted on April 27th, 2009 at 13:33:52 pm

Toronto’s investment in transit is certainly valuable for Toronto but also has the potential to be economically valuable to other areas of the province that have been hurting over the last number of years. It is no secret that even before the widespread, much discussed ‘economic crisis’ Ontario’s manufacturers were hurting and workers had lost 300 000 jobs. Many in the labour movement, and on the political left have been calling for ‘buy in Ontario’ policies to better leverage government spending to aid our economy. 

The Bombardier LTR deal is a perfect example of how we can and should use an unofficial buy in Ontario policy, that will give us to benefits of buying local without the political or economic risks that a formal policy has. Bombardier’s selection will mean jobs in Thunder Bay and around the province for parts manufacturing and depending on where Bombardier opts to source it’s materials from, it could also mean a local demand for local supplies. 

This is $1.2 billion well spent and what’s more it’s about $500 million cheaper than the next bid, meaning even without the local benefit one could make the financial case for the purchase. I am hopeful the City of Toronto, Ontario and Canadian governments will recognize the importance of finding opportunities like these to encourage production of Canadian resources and manufacturing where possible and continue to award contracts not just on narrow merit of that individual project, but also on the spin off effects it can be seen to have on our economy. What’s more when Toronto relies on the Provincial and Federal governments to pick up 2/3rds of a large infrastructure bill, it is politically wise to ensure there is a broader benefit to be felt by the Province and the Country. 

It is important that this be done sensitively, without the appearance of local favouritism or specific requirements being built into the request for proposal that would contravene existing trade agreements. In the Bombardier contract award, I think the City of Toronto found an ideal way of dodging the politically messy and economically dangerous issues of ‘buy local’ policies. They were still able to extract the benefit of such a policy, and for that, I’m sure many thousands of non-Torontonians  are happy, especially the folks in Thunder Bay, who probably love Toronto’s rail transit system better than even many Torontonians do, simply because the strong economic benefit their community has seen from our investments. 

As someone who relies on public transit and my feet to get around, I know I too am looking forward to the big investment in LRT’s and while Transit City may still leave Scarborough inadequately covered with subway stops, the LRT systems going East will make rapid transit more accessible for hundreds of thousands, and especially those in some low income communities. 

Tags: Bombardier, Buy in Ontario Policy, Buy Local Policy, New LRTS, Thunder Bay, Toronto, Transit City, TTC