Kathleen Wynne, Ontario’s Minister of Municipal Affairs is welcoming a move by Toronto to take authority for minor planning disputes out of the hands of the Ontario Municipal BoardTibor Kolley/The Globe and Mail
Transportation Minister Kathleen Wynne tried Thursday to reassure Toronto residents who fear their homes will be expropriated to build a railway link to Pearson International Airport.
About nine residents received letters from Metrolinx, the provincial agency that's overseeing the project, saying their homes in the city's west end would need to be "acquired" and they would be contacted shortly to discuss the process.
An emotional Pietro Valeriani, 64, said he doesn't want to give up the house where his wife passed away.
The retired Toronto transit worker said he's lived at 45 Church Street for 20 years. It's where he nursed his sick wife before she died, he said.
"(I'm) under stress. Mad," Mr. Valeriani said, his voice breaking.
"All my memory ... who is going to buy back my memories? With a million dollars, will you have your memories back?"
Ms. Wynne acknowledged that some residents in the area - near Weston Road south of Highway 401 - will be forced to leave. But others will have the option of staying while the planned rail tunnel is being built under their homes, she said.
"I do know that in some cases, the option would be to have the property bought up, or to stay in the house, understanding that there's going to be disruption," Ms. Wynne said.
"And the letter was not clear about that."
Many families were confused by the letter and Metrolinx will contact them to clear things up, she said.
Ms. Wynne's response left NDP Leader Andrea Horwath fuming.
"After five years of complete silence on this, nobody had any inkling that there was, in fact, a possibility that they would be expropriated," she said.
"Who knows what's going to happen next week, or the week after that, or two months from now? This project has been a bit of a mess since Day 1."
Metrolinx is overseeing other major projects in the city and Ms. Wynne has a responsibility to make sure residents understand how those projects will affect them, Ms. Horwath added.
"If this is an example of what's going to happen in the future, I think the government needs to be pretty clear with this agency that they need to get their act together," she said.
"This was unacceptable. This was completely unprofessional, in my opinion, and it was disruptive and emotionally jarring, and it didn't need to be."
The affected homes are between King and Church streets, near Weston Road south of Highway 401.
The homes are in the proposed construction zone of a tunnel that would be part of a GO Transit line connecting Union Station in the city's downtown core and the airport.
Ms. Wynne said the rail link to the airport is expected to be completed in time for the 2015 Pan Am Games in Toronto.