Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante says her administration has found a lot to like in the 2018 federal budget that was unveiled in Ottawa this afternoon.
From new investments in innovation and research superclusters to clarifications on marijuana revenue, Montreal will get a lot out of what was a budget relatively free of big-ticket surprises.
However, she added that she's disappointed that it contained no new funds for social housing projects. Plante says that's something she and her counterparts in other major Canadian cities had been pushing for from federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau, and she doubts she'll be the only one of her colleagues who has come away disappointed.
She said that clarity on the tax scheme for recreational cannabis once it becomes legal later on this year is also good news for Montreal, saying that she hoped the provincial government would take it as an opportunity to work with Montreal. The Plante Administration is hoping for increased resources to deal with the challenges that the city will face once cannabis is legalized.
The Mayor was also pressed about the lack of allocated funding for two major public transit projects on the island: the long-discussed extension of the metro's blue line to Anjou, and the pink line project first proposed by Projet Montreal in last year's municipal election campaign. Plante said she's not especially surprised those two projects weren't mentioned in the budget, since Ottawa is waiting for provincial funding to be green-lit first.