Northern Light
Superstar
Nieuport was talking to the folks at the City this morning...........
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Mayor Olivia Chow's Toronto
- Thread starter DSCToronto
- Start date
Nieuport was talking to the folks at the City this morning...........
christiesplits
Senior Member
Nominations opened today for the Ward 20 Scarborough Southwest by-election. Election day is Thursday, November 30.
As of 4 pm, three candidates have registered.
Kandavel, Parthi (2022 candidate)
Roy, Suman (2018 candidate)
Rupasinghe, Kevin (2022 candidate)
www.toronto.ca
As of 4 pm, three candidates have registered.
Kandavel, Parthi (2022 candidate)
Roy, Suman (2018 candidate)
Rupasinghe, Kevin (2022 candidate)
Ward 20, Scarborough Southwest By-Election: List of Certified Candidates & Third Party Advertisers
Review the City Clerk’s Declaration of Results and poll-by-poll results for the 2023 Councillor Ward 20 Scarborough Southwest By-election. The following list contains website links provided by candidates and third party advertisers to the City Clerk. The City Clerk provides these links to the...
www.toronto.ca
Northern Light
Superstar
Nominations opened today for the Ward 20 Scarborough Southwest by-election. Election day is Thursday, November 30.
As of 4 pm, three candidates have registered.
Kandavel, Parthi (2022 candidate)
Roy, Suman (2018 candidate)
Rupasinghe, Kevin (2022 candidate)
Ward 20, Scarborough Southwest By-Election: List of Certified Candidates & Third Party Advertisers
Review the City Clerk’s Declaration of Results and poll-by-poll results for the 2023 Councillor Ward 20 Scarborough Southwest By-election. The following list contains website links provided by candidates and third party advertisers to the City Clerk. The City Clerk provides these links to the...
I don't get a vote; as I'm in the ward next door; but, I unabashedly support Kevin here.
Richard White
Senior Member
I live in the ward. He is also getting my vote.
I know Parthi from previous dealings however he is too self-serving for my liking.
christiesplits
Senior Member
I'm afraid I didn't follow the Scarborough Southwest by-election very closely last election. From what I know about the candidates, I would be leaning towards Kevin if I could vote in the ward.
Admiral Beez
Superstar
These revenue tools are too small, a thousand cuts that do not solve the issue.
We need to toll the DVP and Gardiner. We need a municipal sales tax, hotel tax and sports/event tax, parking lot tax, and a property tax increase.
One worry I have is that the TPS will see the $$$ and demand a budget increase.
Northern Light
Superstar
This requires provincial permission. That said, a motion did pass asking the province to upload the Gardiner/DVP. The City can't compel this, but will request it.
The City is requesting this as well, but it requires provincial/federal permission/cooperation.
The City has this now.
The City Manager has been directed to bring such a tax forward, to this years budget process, with an eye to 2025 impementation.
The devil will be in the details (rate, what spaces are covered etc.); assuming it passes Council in its final form.
There will be one of those as well, higher than we've seen in recent years, but the specific rate wasn't approved at this meeting.
Richard White
Senior Member
To be fair, their civilian staff is woefully underpaid.
The budget increases go to frontline staff mostly.
allengeorge
Senior Member
I’m really, really surprised that there was no mention of a higher property tax (as the report suggested) at the Council meeting. That should help a fair bit.
Northern Light
Superstar
That is coming, everyone knows it; its in the report, though no proposed rate is listed.
There was discussion and a request to advance the idea of a graduated property tax on luxury properties.
***
In terms of helping, absolutely, it would,. Though, the picture for the City vs a year ago (no more Covid bailouts and a worsening shelter situation have made things a good deal worse than they were).
Roughly, a 1% tax hike equates to about 55M a year under current rules (caps on multi-res and commercial tax rates).
So if you were to assume a 5% structural increase in property tax (above inflation and population growth), you could add ~275M per year.
Keep in mind, the base increase this year, likely needs to be 4% to tread water, that puts you at a 9% hike. I don't know if Council will go that far; maybe over 2 years? ; regardless, the budgetary hole is about 1.5B excluding unmet capital needs and without material service improvements.
Even a 9% hike gets you only about 1/3 of the way to balance.
You still have to find money for new trains for Line 2; for Platform Edge Doors, for the ever growing state of good repair backlog in Parks, for a new LTC home; and the list goes on.
A lot will have to be done, and the province/Ottawa will have to offer something as well.
toaster29
Active Member
Why would the province/Ottawa subsidize us any further? My parents who live in a small town in Northern Ontario pay extremely high taxes (8-10k) for a house that's probably worth 250k.Why should they have to contribute/subsidize wealthy Torontonians where the average cost of a house is over 1 million, who pay less in taxes? The wealthiest people in the country going to knock on the door to rob from the poorest makes no sense - and I live in Toronto!
reinventingthewheel
Active Member
I don’t recall a recent mention of this, only talk of raising taxes. Could you quote what you’re referencing?
Northern Light
Superstar
Last line, in the post above Toaster's (mine)
picard102
Senior Member
Toronto subsidizes them, they don't subsidize Toronto. If Toronto blipped out of existence tomorrow small towns across Ontario would be in big trouble.
Northern Light
Superstar
So there are a few answers to this.
The first is that 'the province/Ottawa' have to offer something doesn't automatically mean additional transfers; it may mean permission for Toronto to raise its own money such as road tolls, or municipal sales tax,.
Second, on sales tax, the City's preferred strategy is a province-wide or nation-wide deal where all municipalities, including those in the north, would pick up 1% of the sales tax, be that the current tax or an additional point of increase.
Third, Toronto (and Vancouver) are saddled with some costs imposed by Ottawa such as refugee settlement, and low-income foreign students. While these both exist in some measure in municipalities of various sizes,
Toronto and Vancouver experience out-sized impacts relative to population size.
There is a moral argument that if Ottawa is directly imposing a cost on Toronto, it should pay for that.
There are also costs that few other cities pay, Toronto essentially covers the cost of 2 400-series highways, the Gardiner/DVP which generally city government's across the country do not pay.
Finally, I would note that Toronto's property taxes are lower, than many places in the north, but Torontonians also pay a range of fees and taxes that are less and/or non-existent up north.
Garbage and Water are not included in property tax here; and there is a municipal land transfer tax, among other fees not common elsewhere.