TORONTO'S EXCEPTIONALITY

Today is the day the Redoubtable David Miller, Mayor of Toronto will reveal the awful consequences of his council's failure to support his efforts to raise money outside of the property tax to pay Toronto's bills. It is mid-August. Two thirds of the year is past. An obvious question is , how did they pass a budget and approve expenditures without indicating the source of revenues to meet the expenditures? On what basis are they collecting taxes?

Media reports on the melodrama of the city's politics has made for interesting summer reading . In times past. we always knew what was going on in other municipalities. Nowadays we know more about what is happening in Kandahar. Baghdad and Kosovo than we do about happenings on our own doorstep. We have learned more about the new City of Toronto in the last several weeks than we learned in the nine years since the Province amalgamated several boroughs into a single unit for the purpose of saving money.

Media coverage, questions not asked, editorials unwritten and some written have been both revealing and astonishing for their lack of analysis.

We had heard references to the increased power of Toronto's Mayor. We had to wait until now to see how it works. It seems the essence of the Mayor's power is the authority to appoint an executive committee numbering a majority of council. The Mayor is able to hand-pick twenty-three members for his power block. According to media interpretation, a condition of membership is slavish obedience to the Mayor's will.

The power however is apparently illusory. In the current controversy, one member chose to exercise his own judgement and that completely upset the apple cart. Speculation is, the recalcitrant member will be dumped from the power elite. First however he had to be dumped upon by various other members of the power elite. Name calling runs freely in Toronto City Council.

Heretofore , much has been made of Toronto's new power to raise revenues by taxes other than property taxes. The Mayor apparently lobbied for that from the provincial Government. I have never understood why a municipal official would consider that an asset.

But the two "new" taxes recommended are not new at all.They are not even Municipal. The Mayor and his power elite have proposed to double The Land Transfer Tax and the Vehicle Permit Fee . These are Provincial Taxes.

When and how did the Government of Ontario grant Toronto the authority to tap in to Provincial tax programs. . What game is being played here? Who are the players?

There is a game. No doubt about it. The Minister responsible for the Vehicle Permit Fee has been quoted that if city council passed it , there is no guarantee the Ministry would collect double the Vehicle Permit Fee.

The Provincial Treasure has been quoted ,there will be no further bail-out for the city from the Provincial Treasury. Yet doubling two provincial taxes and funnelling funds to the City Treasury certainly would be a bail-out .

The Premier on the other hand, has publicly scolded city councillors who failed to support the Mayor's recommendation for the "new" taxes. Now the question is: Which of these three are speaking for the Province ? And what does this mean for the rest of us?

Another weird angle about doubling the Vehicle Permit Fee is that Ontario residents can obtain their permits from any Ministry of Transportation Office Why buy it in Toronto when it can be bought elsewhere for half the price? . How can the province charge city residents double the fee paid elsewhere in the province based on address alone? Where is the logic ?Where is the equity?

Ninety-eight per cent of Toronto drivers are probably paying little attention to the summer political histrionics going on in their city But if that tax gets approved before the Provincial election , that ought be enough for another fifty nails in the Provincial Liberal Coffin.

The Land Transfer Tax increase is just as questionable.There may not be as many property sales in Toronto as there are car drivers , but vendors will certainly become aware of the inequity; real estate agents, lawyers and developers will make certain of that. Every extra cost is an irritant at the time of such a serious transaction..

There have been other revelations in the course of this public discussion .None has been more disappointing than the belligerent and truculent manner of the August Mayor of Toronto. They haven't had a Mayor with flare in Toronto since Phil Givens held the office for one term in the late sixties.

But perhaps the most significant revelation is that the city has finally been brought into step with the rest of the province in the assessment of property at current value. It is thirty-five years since the Province took over assessment from the municipalities. The purpose was to bring equity to the assessment process. The Province had been providing support to municipalities based on their assessment wealth. If there was no common measurement,there was no equity in support. Municipalities had been known to fudge.

The problem was, the City of Toronto for decades , refused to agree to re-assessment.Only Toronto the Powerful could get away with that.Tiny Perfect David Crombie was in charge at that time. William Grenville Davis was the premier.

A quoted remark by a city councillor in response to published criticism by some Mississauga Councillors has revealed the City is finally having to deal with the adoption of current value assessment. The Councillor apparently had no idea the rest of the province had weathered that storm thirty-five years ago.

The greatest impact of course is on wealthy and elite old established neighbourhoods . They have not been paying their fair share for decades.Apparently, they are currently dealing with 8% tax increases quite separate from any impact the 2007 budget might cause.

And therein I suspect lies the real reason Toronto dare not raise property taxes to meet the real cost of their expenditures and risk the ire of prominent homeowners and businesses in the city. For thirty-five years, they have dodged the bullet one way or another . The attempt at doubling two provincial taxes, with the apparent support of Premier Dalton McGuinty ,is just the latest dodge. It has not
gone smoothly.

But the game is still being played and we are more than just onlookers.