End of austerity as we know it? Torontonians get say on city budget, Jan. 8
Toronto, Ontario and Canada have been undergoing long years of budgetary austerity. Austerity, as the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives has pointed out many times, is a transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich. The rich and corporations have their taxes cut, the poor have their vital public services cut.
The great taxfighter, former premier Mike Harris, pushed this to the extreme. We can thank him and his ideologues for the first explosion of poverty and homelessness that now blights our city.
Mayor John Tory and his acolytes on council refuse to raise property taxes in a significant way to finance the blatant needs of our city. Just one example: They are resorting to pie-in-the-sky future assessment growth to pay for their white-elephant Scarborough subway.
As a homeowner, I have benefitted from the tax-cutters’ efforts. Believe it or not, my assessment has increased since 1996 by 226 per cent, while my property taxes have decreased, yes decreased, by 18 per cent.
While discussing the services that would be nice to haves but we cannot afford, budget chief Councillor Gary Crawford said, “We need to increase our revenues or . . . bring down expenditures.”
Raise my property taxes, please. Pay for the services I and my fellow citizens desperately need, as city manager Peter Wallace and Councillors like Gord Perks have urged.
Larry French, Toronto