Premier Dalton McGuinty spoke out today about Toronto City Council’s decision to defer implementing new taxes until after the provincial election on Otcober 10. From the Star:
McGuinty, whose government gave the Toronto additional taxing powers so it could correct its fiscal woes, lashed out at the 23 councillors who voted to defer the planned tax increases until after the provincial election.
“I don’t myself think it’s particularly helpful to defer some of the difficult decisions that the city of Toronto must take,†the premier said, castigating councillors for lobbying for additional powers for the city then not using them.
“I would invite them to ask themselves why they sought that new authority in the first instance. Was it not with a view to acting on that authority? And I’m convinced that upon reflection councillors will want to make some difficult decisions that go along with their responsibilities,†he said.
“It’s authority, by the way, that no other municipality has. Take advantage of these new opportunities that we’ve created for you.â€
Emphasizing that the Liberal government has “done what we can to this point in time,†McGuinty noted a municipal-provincial task force on downloading will report early next year and there are no plans to expedite the report.
“We’re … sitting down with the city of Toronto and all our municipal partners at a provincial-municipal table in order to determine what more we might do together to further increase the strength of our municipal partners,†he said.
“We think we can do more but we want to do that through our table.â€
McGuinty was careful to stress his “very good, positive, constructive working relationship with Mayor Miller†and made it clear his criticism was directed at councillors opposed to the tax hikes.
“I know that the mayor has made a sincere effort to exercise some of that new power, but he’s having some difficulty following through on that through no fault of his own,†he said.
photo by Colin McConnell/Toronto Star
12 comments
McGuinty – pay your bills. When you’ve done that, let’s talk.
Quite right, Mark. %$#*ing Liberals are good at announcing, but care less about doing. Nobody should take anything they SAY seriously: show Toronto the money. Until Queen’s Park signs the cheques (including those billions for ‘Transit City’) there’s no reason to believe them.
Who cares if Miller and McGuinty allege a “very good, positive, constructive working relationship”? The state of the city shows otherwise. At 37, I have seen nothing but a downward spiral in public space and transit here. It’s time the city gets belligerent. It’s not like they have anything to lose.
Federal and Provincial seats are too stable in Toronto for politicians to feel they have to do anything new. Maybe we should all vote randomly, just to get out of this rut.
In what ridings are the races tightest?
According to the Election Prediction Project, Fin, the tightest Toronto races will be mostly in North York.
If any ridings go Tory, I would expect these would include Don Valley West, Kathleen Wynne’s riding, as Tory himself is running there – it’s also Pitfield territory. In 1999, the Harris Conservatives won Willowdale, Don Valley West, Scarborough Centre, East and Southwest, as well as all three Etobicoke ridings (any surprises there?).
The Liberals will also probably try to take back the ridings lost in by-elections to the NDP – York South-Weston and Parkdale-High Park.
I’d expect all of these to be fairly tight. Unfortunately, my riding is very safe Liberal, provincially and federally.
I’m missing something here. We asked for more power to raise money for the City, then when we get the power, we’re mad because the province didn’t just give us the money.
I think the Councillors that voted against the Mayor’s proposal should think about their actions and how it negatively affects City programs. City departments are probably already starting to cut back.
Actually we didn’t “ask for more power to raise money in the City”; that the City of Toronto act includes provisions to raise new taxes does not correct what Miller calls Toronto’s “flawed funding structure”. This point seems to be missed every day – citizens of Toronto still sends billions more to the province via PST than the province invests in Toronto, and if we could just have 10% of that, Miller believes, we could correct our budget shortfalls forever.
Thanks Jonathan – a useful site for people who want to focus their activism efforts where they’ll be most effective!
There’s no way York Centre is going to be anything but liberal. That area is a liberal stronghold.
Regardless of what you think of the fiscal imbalance, this at least shows unequivocally the position of the Liberals. They feel they’ve done their part for now, and now they think it’s time for the city to pick up the job. All the foot-shooting in the world by council hasn’t spurred the province’s pity or charity, and it won’t trigger restructuring. Better that Toronto levy some taxes and finance itself in time for the release of the services review report in ’08. Overtaxed but independent would be a better bargaining position than that of a pauper city.
Dennis – we want money to fund City of Toronto activities, not Ontario activities. Proceeding along the Premier’s path means a future Premier could reduce Ontario’s contributions to programmes they DO fund and say “you’ve got the taxing power”, so we end up raising taxes on motor vehicles and cinema tickets to pay for social services.
The new taxing powers the Province has granted the City allows them to walk away from this funding issue.
The Premier knows that if the Mayor raises any new taxes, the people of the city will blame City Hall, not Queen’s Park … exactly what happened recently.
Very few people, if any, were protesting in front of Queen’s Park, but there are plans to demonstrate at City Hall to protest possible transit funding cuts.
It was far easier for him to try and resolve this problem this way then to take back social services.
I had hoped that McGuinty and the Liberals would have correctly reversed Harris’ mistakes, but it looks like the provincial Liberals are just as flawed as the Conservatives.
I am very discouraged about provincial politics. Politicians of all stripes seem to do only what profits them (or their ridings). I do not have any more hope in McGuinty and Sorbara then in Harris and Eves.
By the way, I am no more hopeful of the Federal government than the Provincial government.
I would like to see someone in politics show me that things could be different.