Star: T.O. debt balloons $497M in 2007

[Dichotomy]

Thanks...I think. I've bookmarked it for a long read. Never heard of them. But like I said before, I am a sponge........

 

[adma]

That you haven't heard of them until now means you haven't been sponge enough (at least, when it comes to political goings in the city). Of course, not everyone can be a John Lorinc or something (and that's not an ideological statement)

 

[afransen]

Wow... just glanced through the Toronto Party's site. What strikes me is their claim to not be ideological. They are almost a caricature of the right wing ideologue--hardly pragmatists.

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

Time to deaglamate the Toronto megacity. Hamilton and Ottawa as well. The megacity elimination of regional municipality was a major waste of money.

 

[JasonParis]

Amalgamation never brought the cost savings promised and forced a highest denominator levelling-off of Toronto's wages, but it's very unlikely re-introducing a "Metro" level of government would lead to any cost savings 11 years later. Toronto's financial straight jacket has more to do with non-corrected provincial downloading than the fact that we remain an amalgamated city.

I would argue though that Peel, Halton, York and Durham should be re-thought and that a Metro-lite style of regional coordinating body should take their place.

 

[Glen]

Toronto's financial straight jacket has more to do with non-corrected provincial downloading than the fact that we remain an amalgamated city.

With the some of lowest taxes and the highest per household spending in the Province who had been downloaded on? Toronto's straight jacket is a result of not wishing to have residents pay a fair share of municipal expenses.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

The question of how municipal costs are spread out across the different classes of taxation in Toronto is a different issue from the fact that a good portion of the said costs are the direct result of provincial policy changes, and that it increases the overall municipal costs.

AoD

 

[Glen]

The question of how municipal costs are spread out across the different classes of taxation in Toronto is a different issue from the fact that a good portion of the said costs are the direct result of provincial policy changes, and that it increases the overall municipal costs.

AoD

Of course, but the 'political' resistance to change, IE. funding city building, comes from the residential class. That is where the votes and power comes from. It is Toronto residents whom, while paying considerably less than average, complain about high taxes. They are not concerned about taxes in other classes, they are concerned with their own taxes. City councillors, being politically expedient, have facilitated the hiding of the true cost of running Toronto. By the original shifting of taxes to other classes, raiding of reserves, provincial blackmailing etc., Torontonians are unaware that their residential property taxes pay for only 26% of city expenses. The ignorance is aided and abetted by politicians, whom are always willing to sell the idea of getting something for nothing.



BTW would you care to estimate the the percentage of the city budget that is a result of downloading?

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Glen:

Of course, but the 'political' resistance to change, IE. funding city building, comes from the residential class. That is where the votes and power comes from. It is Toronto residents whom, while paying considerably less than average, complain about high taxes. They are not concerned about taxes in other classes, they are concerned with their own taxes. City councillors, being politically expedient, have facilitated the hiding of the true cost of running Toronto. By the original shifting of taxes to other classes, raiding of reserves, provincial blackmailing etc., Torontonians are unaware that their residential property taxes pay for only 26% of city expenses. The ignorance is aided and abetted by politicians, whom are always willing to sell the idea of getting something for nothing.

I know this issue is dear to your heart, but complaints by residents about their level of taxes (and businesses, on that matter) and Toronto's finanical straightjacket as a result of downloading, which is the topic raised here - are two different issues. You can juggle the tax rates between residential and commercial so that the position is reversed and it still wouldn't have changed the reality of downloaded costs.

BTW would you care to estimate the the percentage of the city budget that is a result of downloading?

This, from the Globe, based on AMO numbers:

Meanwhile, the amount of municipal property taxes used to subsidize these programs stood at more than $3.3-billion in 2005, according to the Association of Municipalities of Ontario. The AMO describes the subsidy as a "fiscal gap" - the difference between the costs that municipalities pay to fund health and social programs, and the province's contributions to these programs.

In 2007, that subsidy or "gap" amounted to $94-million for Hamilton taxpayers; in Toronto, it totalled $729-million.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/serv...8.woffloading0928/BNStory/ontarioelection2007

You can pull out the numbers for the 2007 budget pretty easily.

AoD

 

[Hydrogen]

It's not the idea of amalgamation that failed, but how amalgamation was structured and carried out. Provincial governments tended to hide some of their own problems in the creation of larger cities and the responsibilities born by those cities.

Nevertheless, there will continue to be a growing awareness at the provincial level that an emerging entity like the GTA or even the GGHS will have to be ever-more integrated. It will be up to the cities of those geographical entities to work together to acquire the services, powers and money that best suit the people and economy of that region.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Hydrogen:

Indeed. One of the arguments put forth in the megacity debate is that the scale of the amalgamated City of Toronto is both too large and too small - it's too unwieldy for matters of a purely local/neigbhourhood level concern (e.g. speed bump) and too ineffective for truly regional issues (e.g. transportation, land use planning, economic development, fiscal balance). Then again, the megacity wasn't necessarily about the supposed efficiency gains OR good governance but sheer politics at the provincial level.

AoD

 

[Hydrogen]

Alvin, your point concerning governance is crucial. One thing that was so often pushed to the back-burner in the blizzard of debate during amalgamation was the effect on democracy and democratic representation. The Harris regime appeared to view amalgamation as a direct assault on the size of city government - a means to getting rid of what was in their opinion an excess of politicians. This idea was delivered by way of a theme that smaller government would be more efficient because there would be fewer councillors to slow up the process of decision-making (some would call that less democracy). However, city governments after amalgamation have tended towards being more dysfunctional because the size, range of representation, structure and new array of responsibilities.

Regardless, the people of any city will continue to care about the immediate and important things in the their local/neighbourhood situation. But now, the elected persons on council can no longer have the necessary sense of importance with respect to those issues as he or she represents a population bordering on that of an MPP, and with an increasing range of issues and responsibilities. A vacuum has been created at the most immediate level of democratic governance.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

H2:

I think one of the major problem is also institutional inertia - proponents of amalgamation seem to think that changes can be made with a snap of a finger (legally speaking) and everything will go the way it is intended, without considering for a moment that politicians AND the bureaucracy have certain ways of doing things in their own jurisdiction. Having 6 more or less distinct municipalities, each with a history of "colourful personalities" (to put it mildly), dysfunctionalities and forcing them to work together is just a disaster in the making - and it was.

And that's on top of having a mayor who is arguably one of the most inept and corrupt during this critical period. I could only wonder what if Barbara Hall won instead - I suspect many of the problems would have cropped up then and dealt with, instead of having been swept under the table and ignored by an electorate charmed by promises of zero tax increases.

AoD

 

[Hydrogen]

All good points, Alvin.

It was never clear whether the provincial regime at the time ever intended on carrying out the process properly from their end. Regardless, it was a perfect example of municipal theorizing (the ideological finger-snapping) smashing full head into reality (institutional inertia, traditional jurisdictionalisms and those colourful personalities). With amalgamation, we should have been dealing with evolution, not revolution. That would have been common sense.