Tewder
Senior Member
... and /or the provincial and federal governments need to start recognizing the importance of our cities to the health and vitality of our provinces and country, and investing in them accordingly!
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The province of Toronto?
- Thread starter afransen
- Start date
TheTigerMaster
Superstar
I'd have a really hard time supporting a strong mayor system. City Council has proven itself to be far more level headed and consistent than our mayors over the past decade.
TheTigerMaster
Superstar
Toronto absolutely doesn't need better funding from other levels of government. What Toronto and the Toronto region need is greater control over its finances and internal affairs. It's more than a little ridiculous that our region, which is over half of Ontario's GDP, is so dependant on the Province for just about everything.
TheTigerMaster
Superstar
I'm not sold on the idea of provincial status for Toronto, but how would turning cities into province be a disservice to the federation? It wouldn't at all be the first time that we've split apart provinces when the relationship isn't working as good as they should be.
Tewder
Senior Member
It doesn't need better funding? Really? How does the city not control its finances or internal affairs? I'm trying to understand your point.
TheTigerMaster
Superstar
My point is that if Toronto had access to more revenue tools, the City wouldn't have to crawl cap in hand to superior levels of government every time the City wanted to spend a few dollars.
1. The lack of funding or proper revenue tools makes it hard for Toronto to do implement many policies without the cooperation and funding from superior levels of government.
2. Municipalities are "creatures of the Province". The Province can do essentially whatever it likes to municipalities (within the law) with the stroke of a pen. There's absolutely no reason for the Province to wield this kind of power over our larger municipalities. These municipalities are large enough to govern themselves.
Greg Banks
Active Member
Ontario GDP Oct 2014...692B
Toronto GDP...323B (Greater Toronto Marketing Alliance) or if you prefer 2012 (Brookings Inst)...260B
W. K. Lis
Superstar
New York City, for example, charges 4.5% sales tax. The combined state and city sales tax is 8.875%. See link. (Instead of a "value added tax" or GST/HST, the U.S. federal government charges a hidden excise tax. Canada used to have a hidden excise tax, which was changed to a visible GST/HST.) Other cities or counties in the U.S. also charge their own sales tax.
Greg Banks
Active Member
The Cdn Mfr Sales Tax And its exemptions..remember the "S" licence (OEM), "W" licence (resale) and "Production Plans and Purposes"
rbt
Senior Member
Why not the province, and if not the province then who would you give that responsibility to? I'm not sure the federal government defining how large cities operate would be better.
If you are proposing that Toronto should have substantial flexibility to implement it's own policy, then fine, but that flexibility needs to be granted by someone (the Queen of Canada if nothing else).
I'd be very leery of having some large city governance structure defined within Constitution of Canada as that would make it even harder to change than today. Needing Quebec and BC to ratify changes in Toronto's governance structure doesn't seem like an improvement.
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Tewder
Senior Member
You disagreed with me so resolutely yet i feel we were/are saying the same thing? The city needs to be able to raise more money! It doesn't need to separate and become its own province.
TOareaFan
Superstar
Did the city of Toronto implement all the revenue tools made available to them when the City of Toronto act was revised a few years ago? Seems that the last Mayor (the one that is leaving not the one coming in) based a lot of his popularity/voter base on unwinding two of the measures that they were granted and implemented (car registration tax and land transfer tax).....and I don't think all of the available tools were ever implemented.
Midtown Urbanist
Superstar
This is indeed the approach Mayor Nenshi wants to take with Calgary and Alberta.
City doesn't need to separate, it needs to be granted access to the revenue tools that the province currently has. Torontonians and Calgarians are already taxed heavily, that revenue just happens to go to the province or to Ottawa.
Midtown Urbanist
Superstar
The problem with the revenue tools given over to the city (car registration, land transfer, property taxes) is that they are very visible to the individual and thus unpopular. Thus depending on economical and political climate they can be a very unreliable revenue tool to raise even when our city needs desperate infrastructure funding not to mention liable to populists like the Fords.
TheTigerMaster
Superstar
I'm assuming you're referring to my comment that, "The Province can do essentially whatever it likes to municipalities (within the law) with the stroke of a pen. There's absolutely no reason for the Province to wield this kind of power over our larger municipalities. "
My answer: absolutely nobody. Our largest cities are large enough to govern themselves without interference from superior levels of government. There is no reason for the Province to be omnipotent within these municipalities. The relationships between municipalities and provinces should be akin to that of the federal government and the provinces (in terms of how the powers of the superior level of government over subordinate governments are severely and strictly limited).
Ideally the Province should pass a bill that would limit the power of the Province over larger municipalities. This bill would have quasi-constitutional status within the Province, similar to the Bill of Rights.
I do agree with this.
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