doady
Senior Member
Yeah, I think they should stop funding the Catholic schools. That alone would save so much money.
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Metrolinx $55 Billion Plan
- Thread starter unimaginative2
- Start date
Yeah, I think they should stop funding the Catholic schools. That alone would save so much money.
afransen
Senior Member
How? Unless you're suggesting those students not be given places in public schools?
doady
Senior Member
There will probably be a private Catholic school system. I have no objections to that.
Even if the majority of students move to the public school system, there are still savings. No need to pay the salaries of the administrators of the school boards. No time wasted on liturgies or prayers or other BS. In other words, "cut the fat" and provide more actual education.
nfitz
Superstar
And, as the Tories demonstrated, never a shortage of citizens you can kill by cutting budgets.
Glen
Senior Member
Actually, my comment was more directed towards the bureaucracy than programs themselves. A friend of mine has done extensive IT consulting for various ministries, the stories of inefficiencies and redundancies he tells are frightening. Of course when policies are in place that dictate that efficiency gains cannot result in job losses, what can we expect.
Dichotomy
Banned
When their are 3 people behind the scenes on the pay roll for every teacher, there has to be some serious fat to cut in the school boards.
12% of a 6 billion dollar budget is on the order of SEVEN HUNDRED TWENTY MILLION DOLLARS to service the debt. Is any of that money being used to pay it down, or is it just going to interest carrying charges?
Think of what that kind of money could buy! The road work backlog is over three hundred million. Isn't the budget for all the new train cars around $300 million?
12% of a 6 billion dollar budget is on the order of SEVEN HUNDRED TWENTY MILLION DOLLARS to service the debt. Is any of that money being used to pay it down, or is it just going to interest carrying charges?
Think of what that kind of money could buy! The road work backlog is over three hundred million. Isn't the budget for all the new train cars around $300 million?
rbt
Senior Member
People demand an open, transparent, and "fair" government.
By necessity, that requires a huge amount of bureaucracy since it means recording everything (privacy law makes that interesting) and having a standard set of rules for every situation.
Letting staff make the best decision simply cannot be allowed -- such as selecting the obvious tender at a reasonable price without an expensive RFP.
You'll notice that the federal government cost of doing business (read as "bureaucracy") has increased substantially since Harper brought in a new set of transparency laws.
Canadians are very willing to spend $1B in governance and oversight to prevent $50Million in corruption.
Whoaccio
Senior Member
I doubt this would be immediately practical, but in 50 years or so, it would be nice if we could use exceedingly powerful computers to replace the bulk of the civil service.
Rainforest
Senior Member
To date, my experience with computerized bureaucracy indicates that it does not get any more transparent or efficient. Moreover, correcting the system's errors gets a lot harder, as no person has complete knowledge of what is going on (only the database does).
RedRocket191
Senior Member
Whoaccio
Senior Member
Super computers have had a bad wrap in science fiction (SkyNet, The Matrix, 2001 Space Odyssey). For a supposedly forward looking genre, science fiction is usually just used to promote Luddite points of view and criticize new technology (I think Star Wars set the bar for this). Deus Ex gives a much more robust view of potential machine rule. I for one welcome our new robotic overlords.
urbanfan89
Active Member
Unless you want City Hall to default on its bond payments and make it impossible to seek any financing for decades to come (which would make the city even worse than Detroit, ironically), there's no choice.
TOareaFan
Superstar
The best subsidy that the province could give Toronto is an interest free loan to pay off their existing debt.......that move alone would free up cash for the city of over $700 million per year.....imagine!
Of course the city would have to tear up its credit card (ie. agree not to run up the debt again).
kEiThZ
Superstar
I would strongly agree except for what the reality of that scenario would be.
Instead of using the freed up revenue for new infrastructure and tax cuts, the city would probably launch more social programs and be compelled to give even higher pay raises by the unions who would point to all the new revenue. And in no time, the city would be back to square one.
I have faith that downloading will be reversed in due time. Projects like Metrolinx are a step in maturing municipal governance. But until the city of Toronto gets it act together, provincial and federal money will be hard to come by.
What also isn't discussed is that might not be a bad thing to borrow money to build infrastructure. Not all debt is bad.
doady
Senior Member
Mississauga has no debt, it has several hundred million dollars saved up. Yet despite this, it raising taxes each year (just like Toronto and the rest of the GTA) and has already predicted that it will have to start borrowing money in less than ten years because there is not funding.
So what you propose is not realistic.