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New Transit Funding Sources

junior43 said:
They don't need to become provinces to solve these issues. Give all cities over 1M the same taxation options Toronto has and add a few so that they can better control their revenue and where it's spent. Whether we call a city a province or not is not the issue. Redirecting funding and allowing cities to implement various taxes does the same thing with a lot less effort.

Also, if you give every city over 1M provincial status, you might as well revert all province to territories, what they have left will be virtually useless - and at minimum turn all the provinces to have not, meaning all the cities would be making transfer payments to their original provinces anyways. There really is no point to solving this by creating city provinces. Cities would still be funding rural areas, this will never change.
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Good points. Certainly there is some middle ground short of creating fully separate Provinces that would accomplish the same goal. A potential is to re-create Metro Toronto out of everything from Burlington to Newmarket to Courtice. Allow them to manage Provincial transportation and transit infrastructure, but leave funding for things like education and healthcare at the Provincial level.

Personally, I think either option would work, it just depends on how far you want to go in terms of 'independence'.
 
WislaHD said:
Hell, in a city where both property values are skyrocketting and there being a desire for transit-oriented development, I would welcome experimentation with a Land Value Tax if we had the freedom to. It would relieve the pressure on property taxes significantly.
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+1

A land value tax would be great. It would prevent real-estate speculation, and situations where property owners let property dilapidate or lie vacant while they wait for a big condo development. But I see it as a partial replacement for property taxes more than an additional tax grab. Or maybe it could fill up the tax room left by the real decrease in property taxes over the last 20 years.
 
Adjei said:
Seems the amount for transit over the next decade has been increased from 29 to 31.5 billion which half for the GTA.

http://m.thestar.com/#/article/news...aperpage.com/showthread.php?t=149263&page=311
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The most interesting part of that star story (IMO) is this

thestar said:
“One thing we do not want to see changed, though, is our commitment to affordable prices. The people of Ontario enjoy some of the lowest beer prices in Canada, and this needs to remain the case,” she said.

At the same time, Wynne’s Liberals will sell up to 60 per cent of the publicly owned Hydro One with no shareholder allowed to own more than 10 per cent of a utility that controls 97 per cent of the province’s transmission lines.

“These changes will strengthen our economy, create thousands of jobs and generate $4 billion for investments in infrastructure projects,” the premier said.
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So $13B from Hydro privatiation....extra revenue from Beer ......$4B to transit? I thought it was all for transit?
 
TOareaFan said:
The most interesting part of that star story (IMO) is this

“One thing we do not want to see changed, though, is our commitment to affordable prices. The people of Ontario enjoy some of the lowest beer prices in Canada, and this needs to remain the case,†she said.

At the same time, Wynne’s Liberals will sell up to 60 per cent of the publicly owned Hydro One with no shareholder allowed to own more than 10 per cent of a utility that controls 97 per cent of the province’s transmission lines.

“These changes will strengthen our economy, create thousands of jobs and generate $4 billion for investments in infrastructure projects,†the premier said.

So $13B from Hydro privatization....extra revenue from Beer ......$4B to transit? I thought it was all for transit?
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From another Star article

•60 per cent of Hydro One to be sold for $9 billion — $5 billion to pay down debt and $4 billion for transit — with the government retaining 40 per cent.

http://www.thestar.com/news/queensp...o-changes-include-spruced-up-beer-stores.html
 
Wynne had made the greatest mistake of her life with regards to the partial privatization of Hydro One.

Speaking of beer used to pay for transit, beer is already paying for transit (note alcohol advertising throughout the TTC, vastly outnumbering all non-alcoholic beverages). Some subway stations are decked out in beer livery, such as St. George and Bloor-Yonge stations, both presently and previously. A distiller is already paying for free TTC rides every New Year's day even. However, they are not enough to pay for transit maintenance even.
 
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Yah, can't say I am too impressed with Wynne.

I just have to repeat to myself that I voted for transit funding and ranked ballots and that I voted for the lesser of 3 evils.
 
Both the City of Toronto and the Province of Ontario have the revenue streams and options to fund public transit. Unfortunately they are unwilling to use those powers that they have, and would rather hound the Federal government for more money.

We have a serious problem when the federal government takes in too much tax and the provincial and municipal governments take in too little

There are so many options, and they're all so simple.

The province could easily add a couple of percentage points back to the HST and use that to help fund transit.

Did anyone really feel the savings of 14% vs 15% when the GST first got reduced, or the 13% versus 15% we have now?
 
Johnny Au said:
Wynne had made the greatest mistake of her life with regards to the partial privatization of Hydro One.

Speaking of beer used to pay for transit, beer is already paying for transit (note alcohol advertising throughout the TTC, vastly outnumbering all non-alcoholic beverages). Some subway stations are decked out in beer livery, such as St. George and Bloor-Yonge stations, both presently and previously. A distiller is already paying for free TTC rides every New Year's day even. However, they are not enough to pay for transit maintenance even.
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...which always leads to the question why don't they have a licensed car for GO Trains? :)
 
Coruscanti Cognoscente said:
Both the City of Toronto and the Province of Ontario have the revenue streams and options to fund public transit. Unfortunately they are unwilling to use those powers that they have, and would rather hound the Federal government for more money.

We have a serious problem when the federal government takes in too much tax and the provincial and municipal governments take in too little

There are so many options, and they're all so simple.

The province could easily add a couple of percentage points back to the HST and use that to help fund transit.

Did anyone really feel the savings of 14% vs 15% when the GST first got reduced, or the 13% versus 15% we have now?
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Raising the HST would be an easy way to raise a large amount of money, but as a tax source it isn't ideal for a couple reasons:
1) It's regressive: poor people spend a larger proportion of their income on goods and services than rich people do, so an income tax would be better for this.
2) It promotes cross-border shopping and makes us less competetive with neighbouring provinces/states, including by increasing the prices of our exports.
3) It is a tax on productive economic activity. Economics 101 is to tax things you don't like and subsidize things you do like. An HST doesn't promote a shift towards public transit use. In the UK, they had a deliberate policy (“Fuel Duty Escalator policy") to raise the gas tax above inflation. Ontario's gas tax hasn't been raised since 1995, and our dollar is too weak right now for there to be an advantage for people to fill up on the US side.

Of course as long as the HST increase goes towards transit, it's better than no HST increase.
 
Coruscanti Cognoscente said:
Both the City of Toronto and the Province of Ontario have the revenue streams and options to fund public transit. Unfortunately they are unwilling to use those powers that they have, and would rather hound the Federal government for more money.

We have a serious problem when the federal government takes in too much tax and the provincial and municipal governments take in too little
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The problems aren't mutually exclusive. We're the only G8 country where the feds don't fund transit. Fact is, Harper et. al like to look back to the Constitution, the one written in 1867 when we were a country of farmers, and say, "not our problem." Remember Jim Flaherty and his "we're not in the pothole-filling business" remark a few years back? (And this isn't JUST the current Conservative government, though Paul Martin seemed to be moving in the right direction during his short time at the top...) Legislatively, the prov has the upper hand on the munis and the feds over them so the buck gets passed literally in one direction and not in the other and municipalities with needs are at their mercy. (Toronto less so, because it has its own legislation, but still...)

But I certainly agree the province, either way, should have implemented revenue tools. Metrolinx worked for FIVE YEARS on it and then they convened a panel to review that review and then did nothing. I think Wynne totally gets the need for it and it's political cowardice. I understand it on that level but we need some politicians with the stones and the power to just put their fist down and do what needs to be done; whether it's implementing revenue tools or tearing down the Gardiner or whatever. Too much mealy-mouthed compromise is dragging everything down, IMHO.

(The city does have some revenue streams but arguably not enough to fund something like capital for transit. That said, I think this should be happening at the Metrolinx level anyway because the city expanding transit with no regard for the larger region is an idea that's obsolete.)
 
TJ O'Pootertoot said:
The problems aren't mutually exclusive. We're the only G8 country where the feds don't fund transit.
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We may not have a regular program of funding but it is incorrect to say feds don't fund transit......off the top of my head (without googling) I can think of several transit projects that got federal funding.
 
TOareaFan said:
We may not have a regular program of funding but it is incorrect to say feds don't fund transit......off the top of my head (without googling) I can think of several transit projects that got federal funding.
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They do it on a piecemeal basis, when it suits them. If I implied they NEVER fund transit, that would be inaccurate. But they do not fund transit on anything resembling an ongoing basis and that is a unique situation.
 
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