Officials in Mayor’s Tory’s office are quietly working to secure provincial funding for a multi-billion project to realign and naturalize the mouth of the Don River, according to a report in the Toronto Sun.

A plan to reroute the Don River to the middle of the Port Lands between Ship Channel and Keating Channel has long been considered as a way to protect the surrounding area from flooding and unlock it for development.

The cost, however, is expected to be significant with Waterfront Toronto previously pegging the price tag of just the first phase at $975 million.

The report in the Sun cites emails obtained through a freedom of information request that show Tory’s staff are maneuvering behind the scenes to get the ball rolling on the project.

In one email the city’s director of corporate intergovernmental and agency relations told Tory’s chief of staff that the goal should be to get the province and federal government to contribute one-third of the cost of the project “preferably this fall.”

Other emails discuss Tory raising the issue of funding with Premier Kathleen Wynne during a meeting that was scheduled for June.

In a statement issued to CP24 on Wednesday morning, Tory’s spokesperson Keerthana Kamalavasan declined to provide specifics on the status of negotiations with the province but said that the city hopes to have more news to share in the “near future.”

"The naturalization of the mouth of the Don River is a important next step to unlock the potential of our waterfront, bring jobs, housing and new transit lines like SmartTrack. The City of Toronto has funding ready for this important project and we continue to work with our federal and provincial partners to move this forward,” she said. “We hope to have more news to share in the near future."

Waterfront Toronto has previously said that the revitalization of the Don River would unlock about 290 hectares of land that cannot currently be developed due to the risk of flooding.

Tory is scheduled to meet with Wynne today, however it is not known whether the Don River project will be discussed.