Very little is certain or solid in this endeavor we call human life. But, in truth, any day you can write a headline like this is a day to be grateful for.
The situation: Toronto wants 204 new streetcars. The city has a large and well-used network with nearly 350,000 daily riders. The streetcars the city wants to purchase would be made by the Bombardier company, located in Thunder Bay, a city located on the far side of the province of Ontario. For the purchase, Toronto officials put in a request for $300 million from the Canadian government’s $4 billion pot of infrastructure stimulus funds.
But John Baird, Canada’s Minister of Transportation, Infrastructure and Communities, thought the request didn’t meet the appropriate criteria for the funds. On Monday, he flew into rage with some reporters standing around him. “Twenty-seven hundred [cities] got it right! They didn’t! That is not a partnership and they’re bitching at us,” he said. “They should fuck off!”
Ha, right? Yes, ha.
