Toronto Is The Tail That Wags The Dog

Anonymous said...

Toronto council has -- for years -- kept taxes unrealistically low. They're now facing massive deficits because of this. Not to mention they're always crying poor to the province and the feds. ****************************** When the Province issued the edict  in the late sixties,that property assessment had to be measured by market value, at first, they allowed municipalities to make the decision. The City of Toronto, part of Metro then,simply refused. It was a source of bitterness for thirty years between the city and the boroughs. There was no equity  between new homes in the newly built borough and  old properties in the city. The Boroughs , because the assessment was new, carried  an unequal burden  of Metro's expenditures..  What was intended to equalise the burden simply entrenched  inequity. No Provincial government  ever had the courage to deal with Toronto's refusal. When Metro was dissolved and the City amalgamated, Regions surrounding Toronto  were required to shoulder the cost of Toronto's social services to reduce the horrendous impact of the amalgamaation. York's share was $75 million.a year. This year, I see that is now reduced to $13 million. There  was nothing fair or equitable in that provincial decision. They  simply  bank on citizens of the regions not paying attention understanding,  or being in the least bit interested. I  assume the woman in the Globe story resides in the old city of  Toronto. The  assessed value of her home and the taxes she pays bears no relationship to what we pay. Nor do the municipal services available to her compare  to ours. How can  it be? Well mainly I think because  there is no-one and has not been anyone at the Region prepared to go to bat for the region's residents.Not since the beginning. They occupy an extremely comfortable pew up there and none of them, including staff now, have any sense of the history history.