Et tu, councillors?

24 comments

1. Had anyone ever even heard of Councillor Suzan Hall (ward 1) before she moved for the deferral? It’s so telling that some invisible, do-little councillor from the sticks can bring the whole city crashing down. Downtown should secede – either that or we should collectively move to Montreal en masse.

2. And all this time I thought there were a myriad of complex reasons for why Toronto was so broke.

3. Er, I know this may sound wayyyyy naive given the circumstances, but land transfer taxes ain’t the only kind of revenue generation stream out there for the city government and its agencies, right?

   What happened to:

   -congestion tax?
   -parking tax?
   -higher speeding fines and photo radar? ?
   -hotel taxes?
   -road tolls from 905?
   -carbon tax (I know this is a fed thing but still)
   -dumping fees?
   -anti-idling fees?

   The fact that these options still exist in light of the land transfer tax “delay” demonstrates to a certain extent the high-drama way this question of city funding has been handled.

   And while I wouldn’t want to cut any funds to essential services, I can’t help thinking about stories from friends who have actually worked for the city and recount days of listless now-worknesss at full pay. There must be some waste at the City itself. Any way of decreasing this without killing the things we hold dear (including jobs)?

   Just sayin’.

4. My councillor’s mug is up on the pic above, and I already asked her the day after the deferral vote. She supports the taxes, and told me her decision was difficult, but wanted to wait until the provincial election. I think the decision on her part was wrong, but perhaps a bit understandable.

   But I agree – there’s no point targeting the hard-liners like Ford, Del Grande and Stintz, but it is worth pressuring the middle-of-the road types. If enough of them convert, then the issue can be re-opened.

5. I agree with you guys – what an uncreative tax that does little to change behaviour in our city. The City of Toronto Act is a wonderful way of penalizing people for doing things that aren’t good for Toronto, like driving and polluting. But this land transfer tax was a bit of a farce. The fact is the tax base is already large enough, just ask Ottawa, the Feds banked $13.2 billion in the last budget and will likely bank another $8-9 billion this year. That’s a lot of money and we deserve some of that. So I will be asking my MP and MPP some hard questions when they come knocking at my door in the next election.

6. Shame on you Spacing for perpetuating this myth that the proposed land transfer tax is the only viable solution for economic health in Toronto.

   It is ridiculous for you to let Miller shift all responsibility for the economic woes of this city over to these city councillors and to let him continue to use cuts to critical social services as part of his political maneuvering.

7. This posting in a gross oversimplification of the situation and beneath Spacing’s usual standards. This looks like a Toronto Sun smear “article”.

   I believe that some of the faces there actually think they are doing the right thing and and I respect it even though I wish they would have voted the other way.

   The real reason is Mike Harris and now Dalton. And too I must add that as much as I like Miller I have realized that he is a poor communicator and has constantly bumbled causes that I thought were public winners. The biggest example is this tax situation where he has been unable to make people understand that Toronto in general is well run but broke for reasons out of its control. His inability to end small perks, as small as they are, and to allow a pay increase were two of the stupidist things any politician could have done while claiming the city is broke. A grade 10 civics student could see the danger in public perception there. And now we have the doom and gloom approach; one hat may backfire in a really big way. If he really wanted to get Daltons attention then they should cancel the York Subway plans and scare people in the 905.

   With this poor quality posting Spacing seems ready to jump on the hyperbole bandwagon at a time when reason and information is most needed.

8. I was trying to have a tiny bit of fun with this — but humour does not seem to be on the menu today for our commenters (I’m glad everyone takes this topic so seriously). Certainly an over simplification, but it was kind of a digital political cartoon. I did think of the Sun when I created this and was cognisant of the negative reactions it might garner. But that’s the risk I took.

   But I honestly do think these councillors have betrayed the city. You can clearly see that most of the councillors were playing politics and not addressing policy when they voted. A few of them might of felt that deferring weas the right thing to do, but now they are seeing consequences of such a postion. Most of the other councillors would rather see Miller get bad PR rather than concerning themselves with the collective state of the city and its residents.

   It was Miller and co. who’ve faced the wave of criticism about these taxes (which is perfectly fine cuz debate is needed on such hot topics). But these councillors should also hear a mouthful of criticism for believing that delaying these taxes until after the provincial election will do us any good. Somehow 12 days after the election our financial woes will be solved? There will have to be a major plicy shift for it to happen, something that can only be brought on by a full-court press from Toronto’s voters). It was a spineless act by most of these councillors. You may not believe these specific taxes are the right taxes to implement, but not matter which tax is enacted, the city needs the money (unless the Feds magically give us the money we give them, but instead of give us tax cuts). No one can deny that and now The Deferers should have to answer to why they think all the cuts in services is better for the city than enacting these taxes.

   Lastly, I don’t think the land transfer tax was a bad idea. What will happen is that offers on homes, condos, etc will come down — the transfer will be worked into the final price. The only people that will be hurt by this are real estate agents who will get less of a commission and speculators will have to keep ante-ing up when they flip properties. For most of us, the land transfer tax would bhe paid every 10 or 20 years (and first timers get a rebate of up to $2,000). It may not be the best tax to implement but it certainly effects the least amount of people and still addresses the city’s short-term financial needs. I also think it was the most palpable of the tax tools to sell on the public. Imagine the backlash on road tolls?

9. Because I’m feeling all fired up on the imagination end of things, here’s some more ideas for things that could be taxed and which would simultaneously promote values the “new, clean, equitable, beautiful, non-smelly, always fun, where it never rains, etc.” Toronto:

   -Sales on houses priced over 1 million dollars
   -Sales of gas-guzzling (as measured by MPG) cars & -SUVs in Toronto
   -Sales of leaf blowers and gas-powered lawn mowers
   -Sales of pesticides and herbicides
   -Sales of consumer items which have a lot of packaging

   The following levies could also be instituted:

   -Increased water use fees for households that have private pools
   -Fines for those who water lawns on days they shouldn’t (assumes implementation of odd/even house number water use fees)

   Similarly, here are some cost cutting measures that could be implemented:
   -No more using madvacs for street cleanup except after festivals
   -Improved coordination of street/sewer/gas line repair services (it seems like the same parts of Dundas were torn up about three times this summer alone by different utilities and agencies)

   Finally, outside of the realm of pure dollars and cents, the city could try to lobby the government more effectively and encourage citizen education and actions on higher levels of government.

   This sounds lame in a way, but it’s better than making all the residents just plain mad at the city, feeling like they’re being held hostage.

   I feel like the one cent of the GST thing was supposed to be something like that, but it seemed a bit absurd, and didn’t take. Some kind of educational info on the Toronto website re: budgets, “downloading” and other actions to take could be a better start, along with insta-email links to Toronto MPs.

   A caveat: There are probably lots of reasons, legal, strategic and otherwise about why these things couldn’t have been proposed and/or voted on, but the single-decision-equals-doom orientation of announcements over the last few days gets my DSM- depression-definition-aware back up.

   Also, Miami has some crappy land-transfer taxes and it has slowed inner-city building–which the city needs–to a crawl. So I don’t think it’s the best solution.

10. I agree that Miller’s communication skills have been terrible up until this point. There are many things up until this point that could have been done a heck of a lot better.

    Here’s the thing though: the proposed revenue tools were supposed to bring in a certain chunk of money necessary to continue running the services Torontonians have become accustomed to. We’ve deferred receiving that money now, so now we gotta cut stuff. This was made clear to councillors during Monday’s debate, yet they voted to defer the taxes anyway. Yes, there were many mistakes and ‘should haves’ and ‘could haves’ that led up to Monday’s meeting, but that was the reality at the time of the vote, and the councillors above chose to defer the taxes anyway. One way or another Torontonians were going to be paying for the cash flow problem. These councillors chose cuts over taxes (which would have hurt fewer people and the ones who could handle it the most.)

    I too would have liked it if options like road tolls were on the table, or if Miller made a better effort to communicate the severity of the situation to citizens before all of this took place. The councillors above are only partly to blame in all of this. The biggest culprit, of course, is the provinicial government. We should put the faces of our MPPs up there next.

11. Does anyone actually know the average period of home ownership? A quick search of CMHC and other sites produced little, but 10 to 20 years seems like a considerable range even if it were an off-the-top of your head assertion.
    Otherwise, I’m in agreement with Leah’s comments – although mostly focused on the fact that the best solve would be undoing the original downloading – and fixing the educational tax issue at the same time.

12. I think if one thing is clear, it’s that there is no consensus on this issue, or rather, this collection of issues that seem related right now. Some opinions are misinformed, some are downright spiteful, but in general, the people of Toronto seem to want what’s good for the city. I happen to share the opinion that this post implies, but that’s beside the point. The newspapers and other traditional media, I believe, have done a disservice to Torontonians on their coverage of this problem, by focusing only on dramatic headlines and on who has just yelled what, rather than explaining the matter in a clear and unbiased manner. That’s one of the reasons I see sites like Spacing as a valuable tool: they aggregate news and allow commentary, all in the service of informing the people. That is why the particular tone in this post disturbs me.

    I know emotions are running high, and that’s okay – this is a serious issue, and I’m glad people are paying attention. But if we as a city really want out of this situation with honour and harmony intact, we have to leave accusations and blame, however justified, outside. This is a time for the councillors and parlimentarians to be silent and listen, and if the civic body politic can express nothing more than partisanship and cynicism, then that is all that the politicians will demonstrate when they return to the halls of governance. Let’s step back here for a moment, and think about what we’re here for. This place is about the public and the space it inhabits. So let’s give the public some space.

    Edit: I wrote this post before I saw Matt Blackett’s post, so I’m aware of that explanation. But I decided not to change this.

13. Here is my creative tax:

    – Require a permit to drive on city roads during smog days.

    A land transfer tax just gives people an incentive to move out of the city and clog our roads with their cars.

14. And the moment the vote came in, did David Miller tell council: fine, you’ve just voted to kill the Front Street extension? Did he tell them that if the city does not have the necessary funds by winter, he can and will hang up “Closed- No Winter Maintenance” signs on the DVP and the Gardiner? Just to make the point, he can start putting them out on, say, September 25 if the city has no workable solution by then.

    No. After pushing for two regressive taxes that penalize all car owners ($60,000 Jag and $1800 1987 Jeep Cherokee owner alike) and first time home buyers, who does he propose to punish? TTC users, aka the poor.

    We have a mayor who talks a lot about policies he has no jurisdiction over, but hasn’t built a yard of bike lane in some time. He puts on the showy stuff (Nuite Blanche, anyone) while the TTC crumbles. How many times does he have to not stand up for this city, not stand up for its poor, not stand up for its environment, before we run out of patience?

15. I can’t think of a single politician at any level of government who should be proud of their handling of this mess. Finger pointing doesn’t help at all.

    The silly thing about all of this is how little money is involved. $500 million is in the same ballpark as the taxes Torontonians saved when the GST was cut by 1%, so overall a tax hike would only take us back to where we were a couple of years ago.

    I think you have to be very careful trying to design taxes that affect the fewest people. This can lead to selective and punitive taxes (targeting people who drive, have big lots, etc.). Those have their place, but if this really is a crisis, it’s not the right time to pit groups against each other. Everyone should be prepared to pay their share, rather than looking to pass the buck to the neighbours they like the least.

    Though if we must go the punitive tax route, how about a “chronically underperforming sports team” tax that would cost the Jays $100 million and the Leafs $400 million?

16. The reaction here would be laughable if it wasn’t in the main so pathetically sad. I kind of thought that most of you thought that real estate developers where the worst evil since Baal but suddenly you’ve taken their BS about the land transfer tax, accepted it as gospel and are repeating it here.

    I’m not sure that a municipal land transfer tax is the only solution but boy it sure has some nice attributes, it’s a consumption tax and any of the tax fairness pundits will tell you that’s, well if not a good thing at least it’s the least bad thing, it would cost next to nothing to implement, it would be next to impossible to cheat, it can be turned on and the money starts flowing almost immediately, it taxes real money flows instead of the paper gains that the MVA property tax does and it would raise a whack of money. As for first time home buyers? Big whoop, I’ll pay to educate your children and provide maternity leave and child care at levels that couldn’t have been imagined when I could have used them but I’ll be damned if I have to buy you a house too.

    Some of the alternative tax ideas may have some merit but most of what’s been presented here would either be not legal (even under the cities new taxing powers), expensive to administer, easy to cheat and mostly not likely to actually generate much revenue.

    Here’s a tip for you folks, go to the library while it’s still open, got to the reference section and look up the definitions of “capital” and “operating”, notice how they are different.

17. It’s all useful, including the comments.
    What strikes me is that most of the Councillors – with the exception of Mr. Walker, Ootes and Saundercook – are essentially the suburban ring of Etobicoke, NY and Scar, though I’d like to see a list/map. House prices have gone up there too, but there’s also been a tweak added to the taxing there with some “equalization” that has the effect of taking more from the core, even though it’s arguably cheaper to operate a compact urban form than it is a more suburban one.
    Oh, a new term related to the TTC cuts proposed: axeholes, or is that too rude? and cutting Sheppard may be quite smart.

18. Matthew Blackett wrote:

    “What will happen is that offers on homes, condos, etc will come down — the transfer will be worked into the final price. The only people that will be hurt by this are real estate agents who will get less of a commission and speculators will have to keep ante-ing up when they flip properties”

    This is not the case. A land transfer tax does not necessarily result in the sellers of a house agreeing to a lower price. Imagine if the tax was 50% or 100% — would houses in Toronto sell for free? Do higher property taxes (the equivaent of transfer taxes, spread out over a period of time) reduce the growth rate of home values?

    Another consideration — many of these reviled “flippers” buy run down properties, renovate them, and sell them to people less interested in DIY renovations. In a city with a lot of old housing stock, renovation should be encouraged. The tranfer tax would hurt people who buy, renovate, and sell, leading to a crappier stock of Toronto housing, and yet another incentive to move to Vaughan.

    (No, the land transfer tax is not a consumption tax. It is a capital tax).

    The fair thing to do would be to raise residential property taxes, some of the lowest in the GTA, by 15% to 20% over a few years. A couragous mayor would do this, not muse about shutting down subway lines.

19. Other notes about Hypocrisy.

    Many of todays councillors were around during the Mike Harris and Mel Lastman years. What were they doing all that time? Any trick they could think of not to raise property taxes. Miller, you were part of it too and you know it.

    What were Toronto residents doing all that time ? Being pleased about low property taxes and turning a knowing cheek as the City slowly fell apart around them even when when reserve funds were raided and Hydro poles sold.

    What was the Taxpayers Federation up to? They were basking in the glory of the Mike Harris agenda which was really more about re-election than equitable tax reduction. Here is some news, there was no real tax reduction, it just got passed on down the line and now they chastise Toronto when they are partly to blame for downloading in the first place. They are not about fairness or accountability; they are about creating a generation of free-loaders who don’t want to pay for anything because they believe they are so hard done by, even though it isn’t true.

    And Dalton, is it really that long ago that you championed Toronto’s cause and protested downloading by Harris? What happened? Were you killed and replaced by an evil robot that looked and sounded like you? If only that were true but alas, your jjust as big of a weasel as the rest.

    And lastly how about our real eatate gaents and the Baord of Trade. If you read the story in today’s Star (http://www.thestar.com/News/article/238280) about how untransparent our real estate system is the only phrase that comes to mind is self-interest especially that most people use the internet for house hunting now.

    Maybe this is all good and EVERYBODY is running out of rocks to hide behind. It would be a nice change of pace.

20. Scott, I’ll agree with everything you wrote in that last post except for your point about Miller. The left-wing of the Lastman Council, of which Miller was a part, consistantly raised concerns about the then-mayor’s tax policy and how it impacted the livability of the city.

    Those still on Council who were Lastman supporters are Ootes, Nunziata, Minnan-Wong, Ashton, Feldman, Ford, Hall, Walker, Cho, Di Giorgio, Kelly, Lindsay Luby, Mammoliti and Shiner.

21. It must be comforting that our Mayor can introduce any tax he wishes and he has one website in the city which will back him no matter whether it makes even the slightest sense – so long as it fills a perceived hole in the budget.

    [Has everyone noticed that even though not a dollar of the new taxes was due until 2008 we are now making cuts in 2007? Is that an unbalanced 2007 budget I see before me?]

    It must be comforting to be a Premier who can treat his capital city like dirt in the knowledge that he can leave the city to tax itself to death rather than relieve the stresses on it (including having to pay its employees’ Ontario Health Tax for them) – and one website will cheer the process on.

    Don’t worry Matt – I’m only having “a little fun” too.

22. There are plenty of other sources of income that can be used for Toronto, and there are plenty of things Miller can stop doing that is sending money down the drain.

    Spacing obviously shares some ties with both Miller and the Toronto Star, because none of them have a clue that adding yet another tax to Torontonians isn’t going to fix incompetence, ignorance, or political bias.

23. Obviously Jamie didn’t read any previous posts by Spacing on this topic:

    from this post: https://spacing.ca/toronto/?p=2102

    “The city obviously needs the tax money to operate like a major metropolitan centre. And that money already exists in government coffers but its in the hands of the federal and provincial governments who are unwilling to share those funds (in the case of the Feds, they decided it’s better to give us tax cuts instead of funding, say, a national daycare program or affordable housing or public transit).”

    I think Jamie is actually in agreement with Spacing on this.

    None of us want more taxes, but when the other levels of government do not pony up, you have to something (unlike the above mentioned coucniilors who would rather wait for the ruin to happen).

24. Ali I did read the previous posts… but there is still more that Toronto can do for itself. And property tax is not the be all and end all to Toronto’s problems. Increasing property tax would provide a cash injection yes, but, it would also take even more money from those of us in Toronto that struggle to make it from day to day with all the additional taxes being levied against us that didn’t exist or were much, much lower 2 years ago.

    Every time Toronto falls short, or the Federal government needs more money it raises the taxes for individuals and families that are already over taxed and under served, yet businesses are rarely hit with the same kind of crap we are. If a company outputs billions of tonnes of waste a year *we* have to pay an extra $60 on our airline fares and all a company has to do to keep the Federal government sweet is to promise a far off date to make things right… we swear we’ll cut emissions by 0.25% by 2020… but we get hit with tax that won’t ever be reduced from the second the federal government decides it’s fine. How many businesses are causing excess pollution? Plenty. How many are being charged as much as we are for the privilege? None.

    Miller has some power, there is plenty he can do to get some money flowing in… hitting us with yet another tax that is more likely to sting first time buyers and make them buy a home outside of Toronto than in it. And if I was one of those councillors I’d have voted no too, another tax hike is not what Toronto, or Ontario for that matter, needs. It’s time for our elected officials to get creative instead of using the age-old screw the Ontarians in the ass method.