That's No Way To Start A Friendship
I'm with Oakville mayor Rob Burton. We here in Toronto need to be paying more in taxes. I've been saying that for a while now. Don't know if I've been saying it longer than Mr. Burton has. I don't really know that much about Mr. Burton, truth be told. Don't know how long he's been mayor of Oakville. Not even absolutely sure where Oakville is. That the place beside Port Credit?
But I do know that we're in complete agreement over taxes. Torontonians have to start shelling out more, especially if we want to build transit for this century not for two centuries back. On that Mr. Rob Burton, mayor of Oakville, and I concur.
I would, however, like to take exception to his assertion made yesterday on CBC's Metro Morning and in the Toronto Star about Oakville subsidizing Toronto to the tune of $17 million a year since 1998. "When you remind Toronto that you've been subsidizing them," he tells Tess Kalinowski, "they are: A) blissfully unaware that they've been enjoying a lower tax rate on the backs of the 905, and B) they're singularly ungrateful. This does not encourage us to want to help them."
Now, I think I know what Mr. Burton is trying to do here. Shame us Torontonians into isolating Mayor Ford on his anti-tax/toll ice floe and set him adrift out onto the lonely, frigid sea of frugality. Having successfully whitewashed anyone calling for increased taxes as downtown elite, tax-and-spend cyclists, criticism like this from a mayor in the 905 is much tougher to counter. Our mayor loves the 905. His favourite restaurant is somewhere out there. He is very likely the ungrateful type who is blissfully unaware the 905 region pays higher property taxes than Toronto does.
But jesus fucking christ, Rob Burton. There's a much less divisive way to go about this than beating the drum of suburban versus urban division. The very one Mayor Ford used to get elected in 2010, and we're all bearing witness to how well that's turned out for everyone.
Categorizing GTA pooling (or the 'Toronto Tax') to pay for the region's social costs as 'subsidizing Toronto' is disingenuous, and I'm being generous calling it that. It's a far more complicated issue that came about back in the 90s with the provincial Tory government's Local Services Realignment. Essentially, downloading social services costs onto the municipalities.
Even the Harris Conservatives – never really this city's best of friends — realized this was going to disproportionally hit Toronto since (I'm using 2004 numbers here) the city was home to 80% of the GTAs social assistance clients and 74% of its social housing stock. So this Toronto Tax wasn't a subsidy so much as an equalization payment. Providing cash in lieu of services not rendered. Cash that was provincially mandated to go directly to specified social services and programs and not just pocketed for Toronto to spend on whatever whim struck it's fancy.
Geez, pops. Thanks for the allowance. Can I borrow the car tonight? I got a hot date.
Besides, as we move forward to deal with funding region wide transit, it should be noted that the Toronto Tax has been slowly phased out by the province, beginning in 2007 and ending completely this year. So it shouldn't really be a factor in the discussion now. Using it to foment resentment seems a little counter-productive in fact.
We already have a major obstacle in the way of making progress on the transit debate in the form of Mayor Ford. We don't need to set up more by fanning the fires of geographic division based on a misleading interpretation of a financial arrangement that is no longer in play. By the sounds of it, Mayor Burton is on the same side as a growing number of people in Toronto who want a better transit system throughout the region and are more than willing to pay for it. It just does not help the cause to put up false fences between us.
— fence-mendingly submitted by Cityslikr
This entry was posted on Friday, March 1st, 2013 at 1:01 pm and is filed under City Building, Metrolinx, Municipal Politics, Newspapers, Press coverage, Provincial Politics, The Big Move, Toronto Star.	You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
10 Responses to That's No Way To Start A Friendship
glenn storey says:
robby is not A major obstacle. he's THE major obstacle.
Rick C in Oakville says:
I live in Oakville, 1700 sq ft house $4200.00 a year in taxes, and have to pay for all kids rec activities. House value about $550K. My sister lives in Ajax, even worse for housing taxes, approx 5K for about the same size house.
The subsidizing comment is just GTA frustration. Maybe if the Province would loosen the downloading that was never released from the Harris era, (and promised by the Liberals, another promise never delivered) it might help fund some of these needs.
From Toronto's 2013 passed Operating Budget. The average household will pay $346.28 for TTC subsidies, what is the Oakville OR 905 portion/equivalent?
To be honest, not sure if there is, as the the tax bill only breaks down into 3 portions, Region, Town and Education. The Town or Region portion may pay to Metrolinx, but I don't think to the TTC directly.
James from Toronto points to the Oakville mayor
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2013/03/01/oakvilles_rob_burton_offers_the_unvarnished_truth_on_transit_james.html
an aside:I would say that Oakville is wealthy because of the proximity to Toronto. There are lots of commuters that take the GO into downtown Toronto then back to the outer regions at the end of the work day
Mark Dowling (@mark_dowling) says:
I'm betting a 1700sqft Oakville-style subdivision house counting the larger garden and frontage costs a lot more than 550 in almost all of Toronto. We're not paying taxes, 905ers, because we're busy paying mortgages while squeezed up to our neighbours. Being squeezed closer together means firehouses, cop shops etc. are serving more households per response radius.
William Paul says:
always blame Ford eh? NO, we do not need to pay more taxes. That's the socialist view for sure. If you recall, not counting Downsview(One station thru a subway yard, or Spadina Streetcar(same route but with trams now) WEW HAVE NOT HAD SNEW SUBWAY OR LRT's since 1985! That's not Ford's fault. We had the money, but we did not have the will to build. Now that's a waste!
Ford is insane! How would YOU pay for expanded transit?
Harris killed 3 subways post NDP & kept the Sheppard Stubway in Melvin Lastman's North York…
Under Miller, he got 3 levels of funding to expand the Spadina Subway & the Province to fund Transit City LRT…
What did Ford get aside from hot air?
No, MIller did not get funding, Sorbera himself made the ridiculous Spadina sub extended up to nowhere-land.
Harris had to keep Sheppard because having Mel onside was the only way Harris could push through stupid amalgamation.
(Eg West did not justify a subway back then anyways)
Miller got nothing from the Feds except a tiny bit of 1% gas tx that went into general revenues only.
We do not need Sheppard anything at he moment and we DO NOT need Eg East LRT, subway or whatever east of Laird. Buses are doing just fine right now ESPECIALLY because Metolinx will not join Eg LRT to new Scar RT. They will remain separte transfers at Kennedy like now – stupid provincial decsion.
McGuinty(liar) is the problem now, or was because he on purpose stretched out the funding and construction timeline way down the line to save cash
Recently drove down Spadina when I went to the Auto Show. What's with the track refurbing on the Spadina line? Seems like yesterday it was just being put into service.