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  • October 07

Taxing Toronto

Toronto is broke thanks to Mike Harris and Dalton McGuinty! The city doesn't have enough money to meet it's responsibilities for many reasons including the morass that occurred after the Harris Tories downloaded social services to the cities but refused to provide appropriate funding. The McGuinty Liberals are just as guilty for this mess given they have had four years to fix this problem and they did nothing but blow hot air at the people of Ontario.

What's the solution? Taxes. Whether the money goes to the coffers at Queen's Park or Toronto City Hall funds need to be raised. Cutting waste would help, but as David Miller made clear at the recent Toronto City Council Meeting to discuss two new taxes, that isn't on the agenda. These two new taxes as a solution to Toronto's woes were first raised back in July, prior to the Provincial election of October 10th. At that time the council voted to delay the decision. Why? Were they hoping for McGuinty to make a promise and actually, surprise of surprises, keep it? If any of the councilors did anything to resolve this issue, other than merely enjoying their summer holiday, they were quiet about their 'accomplishments'.

No one would ever honor Toronto City Council for it's environmental initiatives after attending a council meeting. There are monitors before each councillor and a mound of paperwork. Huge binders lined the desks and as questions were bandied back and forth so too were countless documents. How much money would have been saved if they used the screens in front of them to look up information? The majority of the reams of paper were ignored. It served no purpose but to collect dust. As we walked in the door there was an agenda available, printed on green in case we didn't realize Toronto was environmentally friendly, except when it comes to using paper unnecessarily. To make it worse, something elected officials are duty bound to achieve, the 13-page agenda was printed single-sided wasting even more of our natural resources. The 'green' agenda wasn't the only piece of paper handed out. The City Clerk, Ulli S. Watkiss, supplied a one-page note letting the audience in on the big secret: the new taxes wouldn't be debated before 10 a.m. The first order of business was to review the Order Paper (green 13-page document). Everyone that entered the public gallery encountered a security guard who asked to look into all briefcases, bags etc. How about asking the security guards to provide this highly relevant and critically important piece of information and save at least one tree? That idea didn't occur to the environmentally unfriendly Toronto City Clerk.

Pretty much the only thing city hall can be counted on is to cure insomnia. That was one boring session. The first order of business was to decide what could be put off for another day. In an effort to double the time wasting Speaker Sandra Bussin repeated each request, in case we hadn't heard it when it was made. If the councillors cared about the environment they might have mentioned it before these items were typed up in the 13-page single-sided agenda. That was too much to hope for from this bunch.

Then the two important items hit the agenda. Taxes. Those that supported Miller gave him an easy ride, others didn't. At least Rob Ford can be counted on for entertainment. Here's part of the exchange he had with David Miller:

Rob Ford: "Would you ever consider cutting any of these perks that we have around here?"

David Miller: "Councilor I think that whole argument is offensive. Councilors work seven days a week, many of them rarely see their families. They work incredibly hard. To call the things, like their office budgets, which allow them to communicate to people, a perk is really unworthy of any member of council. That’s not a perk. It’s an essential necessity to be able to communicate with your constituents. And, frankly, not every member of council can own a printing plant."

Thanks for the laugh David, undeterred Rob Ford carried on, after the applause and laughter abated.

Rob Ford: "That’s fine if he wants to get personal. I can accept that. Just look at where he’s coming from. I guess the Rogers Centre, is that, that’s considered a perk, do you think that’s an essential perk to have?"

David Miller: "That’s not a perk councilor,  the Rogers Centre is used predominantly to raise money for charitable organizations or to make sure that young people who don’t have a chance to go there have a chance."

Rob Ford: "Are you aware that councilors last year alone spent over $500,000 on free lunches and dinners?"

The audience was awake and enjoying the exchange so of course the killjoy Speaker, Sandra Bussin, had to end the fun. Yes, Sandra, if we have to listen to this hot air, we deserve at least a minute or two of entertainment, getting our money's worth, as it were. Not much else is coming Torontonians way from politicians.

David Miller justified his new tax proposals. He said, "The proposals, as amended, are fair. They are fair for first time home buyers. More importantly they diversify the cities sources of revenues so we're not just [increasing] property taxes." Not yet anyway they likely will be increased next year. Why are we in such dire straights compared to other cities in Ontario. Miller had an answer for that, "The cost of social housing and social services were downloaded and the cost of public transit...we house more people in Toronto Community Housing than live in Prince Edward Island. That's what the magnitude of our challenge is, we shouldn't be debating whether we are going to preserve our public transit system. We need to build new public transit."

Sounds like Miller and the rest did their best for us doesn't it, until of course the story broke that during the summer Toronto City Council voted a 9% increase for firefights over 3 years but we're not supposed to know about it. The vote, without debate, took less than one minute. Why keep quiet about the salary increase for firefighters? Crying poor while voting an increase for workers than aren't exactly underpaid is offensive. Toronto has a lot of needs, increasing salaries isn't among them. How about a freeze across the board on all salary increases until Toronto balances it's budget? That would go a long way to show the taxpayers of Toronto that those that suck at their teats are at least willing to show leadership. Didn't happen and likely won't happen, not in Toronto, with this group in power.