Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi has written to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau asking for Ottawa’s help in defraying the considerable cost of housing the critters at Calgary’s zoo in two years. Since 2013, the pair has been at the Toronto Zoo, where the cubs were born and later famously photographed in the arms of Trudeau. The pandas and their progeny are to arrive at the Calgary Zoo in 2018 for a five-year stint. Calgary Zoo president Clement Lanthier said the “Pathway to Panda” project has a price tag of about $30 million. The Toronto Zoo already gets some city funding for its capital budget and received $500,000 from the Ontario government for a panda interpretive centre.

Source: National Post August 28, 2016 18:22 UTC