Shed a tear for Toronto: Canada's biggest city hit hard by provincial downloading

Winnipeg Free Press ^ | Sep 24 2007

[Lorianne]

TORONTO -- This city is ga-ga about the arts. It's no surprise then that the most dramatic comment about Ontario's Oct. 10 election is an artwork in an art gallery window near trendy Queen Street W. On a large, dark background the artist, Scott Sorli, has drawn a graph of welfare payments as they rose until 1995, when Mike Harris was elected premier and rates dropped sharply. At key points, he lists the names of homeless people who died on the street -- lists that get much bigger as the welfare payments get smaller.

Sorli may have to do another graph on Toronto because some days the city, Canada's biggest (2.5 million population) and most powerful, seems to be headed for the welfare lines.

The Toronto graph would also feature Harris, a rogue Conservative and former golf pro, who cleaned house in Ontario by smashing much of the furniture.

Toronto Mayor David Miller says Harris downloaded social services on the province's communities after Ottawa cut its funding to the provinces. That downloading, says the mayor, cost Toronto $731 million in 2006. Largely because of the downloading, Toronto faces a $575-million deficit this fiscal year. As a partial solution, the city may take $34 million from its budget this fiscal year and $83 million in 2008 by cutting such services as street cleaning and repair and snow removal.

Miller also suggested raising an extra $350 million by increasing the land transfer tax and vehicle registration fee -- increases made possible by the 2006 City of Toronto Act, which allowed the city to raise revenues in new ways. Councillors, however, balked and the proposal was put over for final discussion later this month.

Toronto's problems are of interest because many Canadian communities, including major cities such as Winnipeg and Calgary, say property taxes, their main source of revenue, can't properly finance all the jobs they've been given to do.

As a result, an odd word -- uploading -- has become popular in Ontario's election. Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty has promised $935 million to pay the entire cost of a disability support program and drug benefits for social assistance recipients. Great, except the scheme is backloaded and Toronto won't get full benefits for four years.

But McGuinty's heart is in the right place: "Social programs, as a general rule, don't belong on property taxes." The leaders of the NDP and Conservative opposition parties seem to agree. So, if Ontario continues to be a leader in political loop-de-loops, uploading arguments may be coming to communities outside the province.

Downloading, unfortunately, is not Toronto's only problem. Carol Wilding, president and CEO of the Toronto Board of Trade, says about 100,000 jobs have been lost in Toronto since 1989, compared to 800,000 created in the outlying areas. Toronto, she says, is becoming a jobs doughnut: "lovely and rich on the outside, but empty in the middle" despite the creation of the Greater Toronto Authority, GTA, a huge district in and around Toronto, that was supposed to mitigate such problems.

But the GTA itself is losing manufacturing jobs because of the high Canadian dollar and competition from India and China. This summer, China shot by Canada and became the biggest seller of goods to the United States. As a share of Canadian exports, sales to the U.S. have declined to 75 per cent from around 85 per cent in 2000.

There's more bad news for Toronto. The Conference Board of Canada said this month the fastest growing large cities are Saskatoon (4.7 per cent), Calgary (4.4 per cent) and Winnipeg (3.7 per cent). Poor old Toronto was eighth on the list of 13 at 2.7 per cent. On top of this, the Burj Dubai in Dubai, the commercial capital of the United Arab Emirates, is now taller than Toronto's CN Tower. And wouldn't you know it: Some smart alecs have just brought out a movie called Let's All Hate Toronto.

When my family and I were in the neighbourhood on our month-long trip around Ontario, we had a hard time hating Toronto, or even feeling sorry for it.

The world-renowned Toronto International Film Festival was rolling out its red carpet; the city was either having or recovering from a mega-festival; three of 10 prestigious architectural projects recognized by Business Week and Architectural Record magazines were in Toronto and the city's main museums have either had major redesigns or are about to get one.

Even Richard Florida, the trendy guru of contemporary city growth (The Rise of the Creative Class and The Flight of the Creative Class) has chosen Toronto as his place to live and work. "Paris doesn't have anywhere near the openness or immigration policy that Toronto has," he says.

And Bollywood's hottest couple -- Abhishek and Aishwarya Backchan -- last month picked Toronto to kick off the world tour of their first song and dance extravaganza next summer.

What do these people know that Mayor Miller doesn't?

First of a series

Next week: Ontario may be ailing but it's party-party in southwestern Ontario

[Mr. K]

There is NEVER too much money to give away is there?

And any reduction is a bad one

The taxpayers can handle endless tax increases...

[DancesWithBolsheviks]

Many think San Francisco has a lock on smugness and liberalism. They cannot compete with Toronto though.

[BraveMan]

Toronto, she says, is becoming a jobs doughnut: "

[Kellis91789]

Not as long as they can get away with “...cutting such services as street cleaning and repair and snow removal...” and using that money pay for giveaways.

Taxpayers don’t ask often enough why there is no money for the valid government services. They are tricked into giving more money for stuff they want like street cleaning and repair. Then it is diverted into more giveaway programs. Standard liberal government tactic, and people need to wise up.