Ontario Premier Doug Ford told Toronto on Wednesday that no new money agreement is coming. “There’s no 2.0, to answer your question directly,” he said, pointing to a provincial deficit of $16.9 billion.
The refusal lands hardest on Black Torontonians. The city’s 2024 Street Needs Assessment, released in July 2025, estimated 15,400 people were homeless in Toronto that October, more than double the 7,300 counted in 2021. Of those surveyed, 58% identified as Black. Black people are 10% of the city’s population.
The first deal, signed in November 2023 after Olivia Chow became mayor, was worth $1.2 billion over three years. It paid for new subway cars, the province’s takeover of the Gardiner Expressway and the Don Valley Parkway, $353 million for operations and, as Global News reported in January, $200 million a year for homelessness services. It runs out at the end of this year.
Ford said the province has already put $9 billion into Toronto and expects the city to manage its own money. He called these “tough times.” He did leave one door ajar: he said he is willing to talk about “certain priorities,” with subway crime reduction as his example, and CBC reported he signalled some money could be unlocked for public safety.
Look at what is on offer and what is not. Policing on the subway might get funded. The beds, outreach workers and shelter staff that serve a homeless population more than half Black have no promise at all. Toronto already faces a hard budget. Chow has said it would take a property tax increase of at least 2% to cover what the federal government will not pay for shelters that house asylum seekers, and refugee claimants now make up more than half of the people counted as homeless.
Ford’s case is that a province in deficit cannot keep writing cheques, and that Toronto should find savings first. It is a fair argument about arithmetic. It does not answer the question of who loses first. Homelessness services are where the city’s own count shows Black Torontonians most heavily represented, so any cut there falls on them first. Ford has also said new revenue tools for Toronto are off the table, which leaves property taxes as the city’s main way to make up the difference.
That leaves a premier who will pay for security on the subway and will not say what happens to the people sleeping near it. Chow now has to build a 2027 budget around a hole the province has declined to fill. The city’s budget process starts this winter, and the $200 million expires on Dec. 31.
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