The Gardiner is falling, the Gardiner is falling...

AGAVE said:
G20 budget = 1 billion

Jets = 135 million each

Gardiner repairs = Can't afford that.

Better roads and infrastructure to help the growing population get to work = aaaaaah, who needs that....

It's ok, the liberal loving sheep who don't understand who's responsible for paying for municipal roads won't mind. :agave:
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Fickzed. The province gave the city of Toronto the power to implement its own taxes. The ONLY city in the whole country to be able to do so. Yet, for some reason, they still can't buck up and make their budget work.

The first response of the city of Toronto is to whine to higher levels of government. Whether its for infrastructure repairs or removing snow, this city cannot solve its own problems. It's pathetic.

Appropriately tax your residents and businesses, manage your municipal services and stop whining.

No wonder the rest of the country hates this city.
 
Some food for thought on funding these repairs...

A straight up road toll will not work because it will just push the majority of people onto the alternates which include residential streets. There will be profits from the tolls BUT life will be hell for the people who live anywhere near the tolled routes. If they are going to implement a toll (assuming the point is to ding 905ers) then they should do the entire perimeter of the city (metro) to be fair to the people who live inside the city (and already pay property tax, directly of via rent).

Better idea is to implement a non-metro income tax. Basically a 1% income tax for anyone who works in Toronto but does not live in Toronto. This tax is to make up for the use of Toronto infrastructure (roads, transit) for people who do not pay property tax. The genius of this is the people you are taxing do not get a vote in the election that decides to tax them! 905ers will hate it of course and we can expect 905 cities to do the same in return (to people who live in 416 but work in 905, like me). For a person making 100K a year this works out to be $1000/year or ~$20 per week.

BTW, renters pay property tax via the rent (the building is taxed), and the rental building rate is HIGHER than the house rate!

Next idea that has been floating around for some time is to make Toronto a province. This is unlikely to happen because it opens up all kinds of constitutional issues (how many senate seats, etc.) but when one considers what leaves Toronto in tax revenue vs what comes back. My numbers are a few years old but the last ones I saw were:

Federal Level: $6B is paid to the feds MORE than comes back (6B is the delta).
Provincial Level: $5B is paid to the province more than comes back.

While I hate Miller his one good point was Toronto is not begging for money Toronto just wants some of the cities money back...

Now if Toronto was a province by itself, the 6B will still go to the feds and the 5B provincial tax would stay in the city. Because of the 5B yearly surplus the Province of Toronto would be on the hook for transfer payments so lets say it is a net 3B all said and done.

With 3B more in city budget they could rebuild all the infrastructure backlogs and a kickass subway in 10 years. Or Miller will come back and they will build doubledecker bike lanes to no where out of gold, triple the city workforce and four times the pay, and still leave the highways, sewers, etc. to rot.

If this ever happened the tax rates for 905 would go through the roof because now they have to carry the province by themselves. So they will want to either form their own province or join the new Province of Toronto... and so on and so forth.
 
backmarkerducati said:
Some food for thought on funding these repairs...

A straight up road toll will not work because it will just push the majority of people onto the alternates which include residential streets. There will be profits from the tolls BUT life will be hell for the people who live anywhere near the tolled routes. If they are going to implement a toll (assuming the point is to ding 905ers) then they should do the entire perimeter of the city (metro) to be fair to the people who live inside the city (and already pay property tax, directly of via rent).

Better idea is to implement a non-metro income tax. Basically a 1% income tax for anyone who works in Toronto but does not live in Toronto. This tax is to make up for the use of Toronto infrastructure (roads, transit) for people who do not pay property tax. The genius of this is the people you are taxing do not get a vote in the election that decides to tax them! 905ers will hate it of course and we can expect 905 cities to do the same in return (to people who live in 416 but work in 905, like me). For a person making 100K a year this works out to be $1000/year or ~$20 per week.

BTW, renters pay property tax via the rent (the building is taxed), and the rental building rate is HIGHER than the house rate!

Next idea that has been floating around for some time is to make Toronto a province. This is unlikely to happen because it opens up all kinds of constitutional issues (how many senate seats, etc.) but when one considers what leaves Toronto in tax revenue vs what comes back. My numbers are a few years old but the last ones I saw were:

Federal Level: $6B is paid to the feds MORE than comes back (6B is the delta).
Provincial Level: $5B is paid to the province more than comes back.

While I hate Miller his one good point was Toronto is not begging for money Toronto just wants some of the cities money back...

Now if Toronto was a province by itself, the 6B will still go to the feds and the 5B provincial tax would stay in the city. Because of the 5B yearly surplus the Province of Toronto would be on the hook for transfer payments so lets say it is a net 3B all said and done.

With 3B more in city budget they could rebuild all the infrastructure backlogs and a kickass subway in 10 years. Or Miller will come back and they will build doubledecker bike lanes to no where out of gold, triple the city workforce and four times the pay, and still leave the highways, sewers, etc. to rot.

If this ever happened the tax rates for 905 would go through the roof because now they have to carry the province by themselves. So they will want to either form their own province or join the new Province of Toronto... and so on and so forth.
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Good arguments all, however the math just doesn't add up.

905 province would charge an exportation tax for all the food, building materials, et al you need to keep the province of Toronto going.

Seccession would also mean assuming Toronto's portion of the Ontario debt. Interest payments on that alone would most likely cripple the city.

If Toronto became it's own province it would now have to service all the provincial highways (427, portion of the 401), universities, hospitals out of its own budget. These things are currently not captured in the municipal budget.

These numbers (while I cannot quantify them) would surely sink this proposal before it got off the ground.
 
Myztyk said:
Or...we should move all the business that's left out of Tyranny-onto (since we're calling names here) out to the suburbs, watch your tax base crumble even more and we'd all have a short commute to work.

Then we could charge you all to come out to us for work! Brilliant!

FYI...Gardiner sucks both ways in the morning. It ain't just the suburbanites using it.

I love this idea!
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I've always wondered why so many businesses want their offices in Toronto. The only reason I can think of is that they want a large worker base or just enjoy making their employees suffer terrible commutes every day. I know putting an office/store in Toronto often scares away people from smaller towns from wanting to go there because Toronto traffic is such a cluster****.

So far the only answer someone has given me is that they want to be close to the banks' offices.

If I didn't get a job that happens to be located at the airport, I wouldn't come near the GTA if I could avoid it. But based on my current work and relationship situation it looks like I'm going to be moving right into Toronto. Joy. At least the subway comes in handy to go get drunk.

I also think the Gardiner should actually just be continued as the 403 and funded by the federal government, the Allen should be extended and made a 400-series, and the 407 should never have been sold and shouldn't be a toll highway since the other ones are all clogged but none of that is ever going to happen. First politician that says it will gets my vote though. I don't care what it costs. It will prevent me from going insane in a few years, heh.
 
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Myztyk said:
Good arguments all, however the math just doesn't add up.

905 province would charge an exportation tax for all the food, building materials, et al you need to keep the province of Toronto going.

Seccession would also mean assuming Toronto's portion of the Ontario debt. Interest payments on that alone would most likely cripple the city.

If Toronto became it's own province it would now have to service all the provincial highways (427, portion of the 401), universities, hospitals out of its own budget. These things are currently not captured in the municipal budget.

These numbers (while I cannot quantify them) would surely sink this proposal before it got off the ground.
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The 5B is the delta, it is after the money that left the city (taxes to the province) and then comes back into the city for provincially funded roads, hospitals, universities, etc. The actual number that goes to the province in the first place is much higher. As far as provincial debt goes you may be right, but 5B will go a long way toward paying the Toronto portion of the payments (which the province cannot even do now).

If you add up provincial income tax for Toronto families we are looking at 10B to 20B right there. Then there is sales tax, corporate tax, liquor tax, etc....

Goods that are shipped in by truck do so on provincial highways so 905 would have to take over those before they could levy a tariff which of course there is no real way to do it (other than road toll) given that goods ship back and forth across the country now province to province with no tariff. BTW, 905 would need goods from 519 etc....
 
backmarkerducati said:
The 5B is the delta, it is after the money that left the city (taxes to the province) and then comes back into the city for provincially funded roads, hospitals, universities, etc. The actual number that goes to the province in the first place is much higher. As far as provincial debt goes you may be right, but 5B will go a long way toward paying the Toronto portion of the payments (which the province cannot even do now).

If you add up provincial income tax for Toronto families we are looking at 10B to 20B right there. Then there is sales tax, corporate tax, liquor tax, etc....

Goods that are shipped in by truck do so on provincial highways so 905 would have to take over those before they could levy a tariff which of course there is no real way to do it (other than road toll) given that goods ship back and forth across the country now province to province with no tariff. BTW, 905 would need goods from 519 etc....
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Just used 905 as an example. :) It would of course be the province of Ontario charging those levies, not the area code 905 vs. 519 vs. 705. Frankly the 705'ers would make out better than anybody in that case! lol

Where are you getting the 5B delta from the province? I just have a hard time believing that given all the specialized hospitals, the high end universities, etc that it's that little. Feels like there's some financial wizardry going on there to prove a case. Not saying you did the math, I'm assuming you just got it from another source. The provincial facilities in the city of Toronto are by no means cheap to run.

You'd also have to count the eroding tax base of all the government workers downtown who would be moved out of there (LCBO, WSIB to name a couple). Although on the flip side this might help your traffic problem! LOL

As for the debt thing, I'm basing that on my experience with Quebec seperatism. If you dug through the math, the assumption was that Quebec would not assume any of the Canadian debt. If you lumped them with their fair share (which is greater than their representative population due to them being a "distinct society" and a have not province), it would have crippled them. I'd assume Toronto would have to assume its fair share of the debt as it became its own province.

Also, let's not forget that before Quebec started talking about seperating, Montreal was the banking capital of Canada. The banks get nervous when governments start talking change. Even something as simple as provincial seperation would start to make them nervous. And I'm sure the province of Ontario would give huge tax breaks for them to move their offices to the newly minted provincial capital of Mississauga! That would be the death blow to the deal right there.

Toronto's best bet is to vote blue and hope Hudak does a better job of taking care of this city than the Liberals have. McGuinty has proven time and time again he has no interest in helping his province's largest city. (Oh that and start frikkin charging the taxes they are allowed to!!! Sheesh!)
 
bboySushi said:
So true. The stupid thing is they spend the money to fix the SAME DAMN ROADS OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN! I swear Brittania and Mavis has been under construction for 6 months, and I remember a couple years back, Central Parkway East of Mavis was done like three times in three years.
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different municipality isnt it?.
 
Flip said:
because they sold it to a German company that's why. so toronto is not making much money out of it. I think.
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Close, Spanish Company. Toronto never made any money off of it. It was always a provincial property.

I'm of mixed views on this. My feeling is that if the province had continued to run it would be the size it was 10 years ago. There be fighting, premiums charged to build it, they couldn't have charged what the Spaniards are charging today, etc. So by no means sad the province sold it, however would have been nice to see the revenue stay in Canada.
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