Mayor John Tory says that he will only support a proposal to upload responsibility for Toronto’s subways to the province if it can be proven to him that doing so would “substantially improve” the status quo.

Last week, the province appointed Michael Lindsay as a special advisor to head up the provincial government’s efforts to upload the subway system, though it remains unclear when such a move would actually be carried out.

Speaking with reporters at an unrelated press conference on Tuesday morning, Tory said that while he has met with Minister of Transportation John Yakabuski to receive his assurance that a fulsome consultation process will be carried out, he is not pushing for the uploading of the subways right now.

During the election campaign, Premier Doug Ford promised that the province would assume responsibility for Toronto's subway infrastructure, including the building and maintenance of new and existing lines.

“The status quo has to be substantially improved on from the standpoint of the users of the transit, the employees of the transit, the public at large and the taxpayers before any kind of proposal that any committee comes up with will be something that I am interested in,” Tory said. “In the end why else would you do this unless you are going to produce a substantial impact that is going to get transit built faster and have it work better overall?”

The Progressive Conservative government has indicated that Lindsay will preside over a three-member panel that will support the government in determining the “best approach” for the uploading of Toronto’s subways, including the building and maintenance of new and existing subway lines.

Tory said that his main concern right now is that Ford does not repeat the “unilateral and middle-of-the -night decision making” that he exhibited in slashing the size of city council and instead studies the issue and consults key stakeholders.

He added that he had no advance warning on the appointment of Lindsay, though he said he had been previously assured that there would "at least be a process."

“I am encouraged at the fact that there is going to be a panel which will work over a one-year period which certainly suggests extensive review of the options. I guess it couldn’t have got worse than what we saw with the composition of the council,” he said.