Within hours of asking whether Dalton McGuinty and John Tory would offer a hand up to Toronto or sucker punch us at this week’s Association of Municipalities of Ontario meeting, the Toronto Star is reporting that McGuinty has chosen to deliver, what I’d call, a body blow to all municipalities.
In spite of the NDP attempt to avoid a ‘race to the bottom’ approach to funding promises for municipalities, it appears that’s exactly what McGuinty is committed to doing by announcing his four-year $935 million pledge.
If this promise is fulfilled, it would give Toronto a paltry $38 million in 2008 and $217 million per year by 2011.
While the City will welcome any penny that lands on its doorstep at this point, $38 million is an appalling offer to Torontonians, especially now that we know Queen’s Park is swimming in 2.3 billion surplus dollars.
I’ll leave the analysis on this one to the usually insufferable and truth-challenged card-carrying Tory, Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong, courtesy the Star: “(Finance Minister Greg) Sorbara needs to get a crowbar, open his wallet, and give Toronto the resources it needs to be successful.â€
But having made that comment, Minnan-Wong needs to start riding his own political horse, John Tory.
Tory hasn’t come close to offering a specific promise to municipalities. Besides calling for redundant audits of the City of Toronto, at this point, the PC leader’s commitment begins and ends with completing the McGuinty-initiated Provincial-Municipal Review scheduled to report post-election. However, Tory himself has criticized McGuinty’s review as a ploy to avoid the issue. (There’s a saying that includes pots, kettles and black. I’m sure you know it.)
The problem on this file for Tory might be that he waited too long to take a position. At this point, the Liberals and NDP have both staked their ground in this debate, leaving little space for the Tories. The PC wouldn’t go higher than the NDP and, unless they offer no new funding whatsoever (unlikely since Tory is running in Toronto), they can’t get much lower than the Liberals. Going up the middle may be an option but among party activists, offering to spend more on Toronto than the Liberals wouldn’t be popular. That said, John Tory has adopted the Liberal stance on many contentious issues since he took over the PC leadership so he may go that route again.
But unless Tory surprises everyone and tries to champion the cause of municipalities as Hampton has, McGuinty’s expected announcement sets the stage for another massively disappointing election for Toronto. The only way the result will change now is if voters take on our city’s cause and force provincial candidates of all stripes to do better for us. It won’t be easy but we may have some momentum going in our favour.
And to those city councillors who voted to defer the new taxes: If you were so committed to making funding for municipalities the issue this election, how on earth could you allow McGuinty to believe he could live to see another term in office with a promise like this?!?
Photo courtesy bonnechance.
11 comments
Adam – the fact is that while this is plainly inadequate, it is higher than zero. It is also disingenuous to criticise Tory in a different fashion to McGuinty – let’s see what Tory offers at AMO.
You can spin this however you like but the mushy middle councillors have now obtained some money *which didn’t exist before*, and some acknowledgement of the justice of the issue. The first two bids are in and I doubt there will only be one round of bidding.
Toronto’s votes are in play for the first time in years and we have Brian Ashton in particularly to thank for sacrificing his Executive position to make it happen. Miller’s “it’s okay, we’ll talk and talk but in the end we’ll just raise City taxes while Ontario runs a surplus” didn’t get us this far.
McGuinty is setting new records for announcing future spending. The old dodge used to be to announce a five-year program’s spending all rolled into one package, but at least it wasn’t back-end loaded.
Now, after saying for months that the Liberals were not going to announce anything until the who-does-what study comes down next year, they’ve discovered that people are angry and have announced a fix. Well, sort of. It’s a tiny amount, and the real benefits don’t flow until near the end of the next mandate.
John Tory is no better with implementation tomorrow, but never today, schemes for uploading.
Why are the Liberals so suicidal with this type of announcement. Just saying “wait, trust us” may not encourage high hopes, but dropping a few pennies into municipalities’ begging cups shows that Queen’s Park won’t be the answer.
Of course, true uploading would probably require increasing provincial taxes, the very taxes that were cut to bribe us with our own money by Mike Harris. Perish the thought anyone would talk about tax increases during an election.
If this is all we can expect from McGuinty, the Minnan-Wong crowd should swallow hard and get ready to vote “yes” on some big new taxes, including property taxes. We cannot let the city continue to be run on a shoestring because Queen’s Park is full of gutless politicians.
This is a disgrace. I want to see with what face the Liberal candidate in my riding will show when knocking on my door this October. I refuse to accept having the property taxes I pay being used for social services, which is so absurd that nobody outside Ontario can grasp such stupid policy. These bastards are reaping billions of dollars in surpluses at the expense of Toronto. Now I want to see anybody here saying that separating from Ontario shouldn’t be seen as an option. Do you know why these pricks get away with this shit? It is because they see Torontonians as spineless pushovers. I will not be pushed around anymore, Ontario can go to hell for all I care, time to move Queens Park to Thunder Bay.
I would like to see Spacing contributers give fair voice to all political parties in this election. I know many of you are pro NDP but the more information the voters have the better.
Thank you!
Mark,
Even if the new taxes did go ahead, they wouldn’t cover the projected $575 million gap and we’d still need the province to upload some services. Had they gone ahead, the outcry for help could have been just as loud, with those resentful that they have to pay more in taxes and angry that the province didn’t step up to the plate sooner calling on McGuinty to take on his share of the burden. Thanks to Ashton and others, we now get to endure cuts that didn’t have to happen. The money the province is funding that “didn’t exist before” won’t even help us avoid the $83 million in cuts projected for next year.
Dale – we’ll have to agree to differ. The vote kickstarted the backlash against the status quo at a much earlier date and thus, as I mentioned earlier, a few more announcements might get squeezed in yet. In any case, Miller has already, depressingly, largely capitulated in his news release by deeming himself “pleased” with McGuinty’s miserly offer – he might offer caveats later in the release but the Liberal Party only care about the first sentence and will quote it “liberally”.
If I were Mayor, I would tell him to stick it, that Mr. Hampton currently had the top bid and the next bid was Mr. Tory’s. In addition to the $900m surplus projected for this year, maybe the piggy bank with the Sorbara Subway Trust money in it might get broken open to top up the next bid – especially since we don’t need some (my view) or any (Steve Munro’s view) of that project anyway.
If Tory wants to win his own seat, never mind the Premiership, he better come to AMO tomorrow with a commitment to a number – and Sorbara has given him the wiggle room to do it.
The money that “didn’t exist before”:
It was not rocket science to look at the total deficit in the City budget, the amount of money that would have been raised by the Land Transfer and Vehicle Registration taxes, the amount of money that would come from a reasonable property tax increase and see that what was left over was in the $250-million range.
This also happens to be at least in the ballpark of the social service uploads many have talked of over the past months. The offer from Queen’s Park is a pittance, but at least it may wake up those fools who voted to defer — there is no sugar daddy and they had better get ready to raise taxes.
Hey, if anyone has time and can figure this stuff out, it would be great to start a grid — you know, with columns for the three parties, and rows for public transit, uploading, etc. To be frank I’m confused silly by all these promises and non-promises, and am more than ready to sell my vote to the highest urban donor. If only I can figure out who that is…
Steve – the reality is those taxes will pass – even I as an opponent of them in principle know that. The 22 will hold and he will get Ashton, Perruzza and Augimeri back at minimum. The City has to be able to pass a budget next year.
The only issue is whether deferral has gotten Toronto a better deal than before. However, your assertion that everybody knew there was going to uploading has a smack of rewriting history about it and is unworthy of you. Hampton got the ball rolling, Sorbara said no, now McGuinty’s saying yes.
Maybe Tory will bottle it tomorrow, I haven’t a clue what he’ll do, but what if he offers uploading along the lines of what Hampton’s offering – do you seriously think McGuinty won’t come under pressure to match it after Sorbara crowed about a $2bn surplus and $750m next year alone?
I didn’t say everyone knew it would happen, Mark. What I said was that it wasn’t rocket science to figure out (a) how much was needed from revenue sources other than Toronto and (b) this number has been floating around in the press for some time as a potential upload figure.
McGuinty’s folks are at worst no more stupid than I am, and they can do the math too. They must have known that this announcement wouldn’t come close. Maybe that was their intention — put Toronto Council on notice now that they cannot expect a bailout.
Steve – I read plenty of people throwing around putative upload numbers – my point was I don’t recall anyone saying McGuinty was likely to pay them – and certainly not before the deferral, when the rhetoric from Queens Park was use the tools we gave you.