It’s budget day at Toronto City Council! If you want to watch—and you do—you can do so here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wc2HzqzEHPI
As is standard practice now, the mayor has decided council will vote to lock in property tax rates before they vote on the budget.
Coun. Shiner says petitions describing Toronto’s property taxes as second-lowest in GTA are incorrect. Toronto has highest taxes, he says.
(Fact check: nope.)
Coun. Perks asks the mayor if property tax rates and the budget can be debated as a package. Tory declines.
Pasternak points out people have option to pay extra on their property tax bull, but few do. So, he concludes, no one wants higher taxes.
Bad points: 1) Property taxes bad for seniors 2) Taxes aren’t low if you consider [some incorrect thing] 3) Why don’t people just donate?
Absurd display from Coun. Burnside, as he attempts to argue prop taxes aren’t so low if you ignore condos, or only look at two-storey homes.
BUT when you look at it this way, Toronto’s property taxes are very high. CHECKMATE, left-wingers.
Shiner’s justification for saying earlier that Toronto has the highest property taxes in the GTA is indeed this ridiculous chart.
Note the highest bar in that chart is for a three bedroom, 2.5 bath home with a TWO-CAR GARAGE in Toronto South.
This is an important point. If you really wanted to distort things, you could break out, say, Rosedale. (Or, uh, Drake’s house.) https://x.com/jm_mcgrath/status/831912710728273921
Coun. Joe Mihevc wants a transit museum. http://www.ttc.ca/About_the_TTC/Commission_reports_and_information/Commission_meetings/2017/February_21/Reports/17_New_Business_TTC_Museum.pdf (PDF)
Coun. Giorgio Mammoliti moves that city impose a 0 tax increase. He cites his budget meeting on Monday night - he now says 750 attended.
Mammoliti is angry about the CVA shift on the tax bill, which the city has literally zero control over.
Just you wait. The floating casino idea is coming. Also: “amalgamate our housing agencies” or whatever. https://x.com/Campbell4Ward4/status/831947413334196231
Pasternak worries that property taxes will hurt seniors. Yeah, it’s almost like Toronto should have a program for seniors… oh WAIT, they do.
Mammoliti contends it’s impossible to find a home in Toronto for less than $500K. Perks tells him how averages work.
There’s been a strong undercurrent of “people who live in apartments or condos don’t really matter” throughout this debate so far.
Di Giorgio: “the fact of the matter is the waiting line just gets longer the second you decide to satisfy everyone in the waiting line.” Zen
Norm Kelly’s long speech on the budget ends with talk of what the “millennial workforce” really wants. “Some degree of fun,” he concludes.
In the gallery, supporters of investing more in city services are throwing up copious jazz hands during speeches from likeminded councillors
Just saw one person raise the roof during a Kristyn Wong-Tam speech.
Coun. Burnside gives another speech disputing the conventional wisdom that Toronto property taxes are low. I am out of ideas.
“There is absolutely no gravy train. The gravy train is something people say to fulfill their own political agendas,” says Karygiannis. Wow.
Now Coun. Shiner is up at the overhead projector, continuing to try to convince us Toronto property taxes are wicked high.
Mayor Tory compares Mammoliti and Perks to Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner. “I’m the road runner!” says Perks.
Mayor Tory says that this debate hasn’t had enough talk about demanding more money from other levels of government.
Mayor Tory accuses Mammoliti of practicing “game show politics.” Mayor is at his best when he’s tearing down Giorgio.
Mammoliti’s motion for a 0 percent tax increase FAILS 2-40. Holyday and Mammoliti in favour. Michael Ford resists.
Now that the prop tax rates are locked in, councillors can’t move any amendments that increase service levels unless they find offset amount
Coun. Cressy has moved to increase the number of support staff for shelters in the 2017 budget.
Coun. Mammoliti has moved his usual slew of budget-slashing motions. He wants to eliminate the city’s anti-poverty strategy, for example.
Here’s Mammoliti’s motion. Also includes “transitioning out of the public transportation services.” https://x.com/TorontoCouncil/status/832014713684910082
Coun. Nunziata wants to look at establishing a City of Toronto lottery. (Isn’t that what the rec program registration system is?) https://x.com/TorontoCouncil/status/832026482818088960
Maybe they could just put a little scratch-and-win thing on every property tax bill.
One of those motions you read and you’re like, “why would anyone vote against this?” https://x.com/TorontoCouncil/status/832045017896198144
Last ditch effort to save programming at the pool championed by Penny Oleksiak. https://x.com/TorontoCouncil/status/832046934902857728
In final speech on budget, Mayor Tory again admonishes some of his colleagues for not focusing enough on need for province to fund things.
Cressy’s motion to restore 10.3 positions in shelter, support and housing FAILS 19-25.
Mammoliti motion to cut a bunch of things, including poverty reduction strategy, all of transit, etc. FAILS 3-40. (Mistake by Augimeri.)
Coun. Jaye Robinson is supporting Mammoliti’s motions to delete staff positions. Just voted against adding 8 new planners.
Layton motion to increase parks & rec budget by $4.1 million to address program wait list FAILS 14-30.
Fragedakis motion to fund TTC signal track and traction power reliability program FAILS 18-26. Remember this one.
McMahon motion to keep programming at S.H. Armstrong Pool LOSES 22-22. Sorry, Penny.
McConnell motion to increase public health budget to maintain one-on-one mentoring program PASSES 35-9.
Wong-Tam motion to develop intersectional gender-based framework for 2018 budget process PASSES 26-18.
Nunziata motion for a report on a City of Toronto lottery as a potential revenue tool PASSES 28-16.
Instead of lottery, once a year the city manager should just take all tax revenue, go to Vegas, bet it all on one spin of the roulette wheel
Whoa. Council just voted AGAINST the 2017 budget as it pertains to street sweeping reductions. 20-24.
Apparently this creates a $2 million budget hole. I am not aware of anything like this happening before. They’re talking about re-voting.
It’s possible that having people vote on a $10 billion budget at 11:45 p.m. is a bad idea.
It’s the most sinister kind of chaos: PROCEDURAL CHAOS.
My legal opinion of this matter is that, with an unbalanced city budget, there are no laws now. We live in The Purge.
The closest analog to this situation is that time when council accidentally banned plastic bags.
This is a legit great plot twist. https://x.com/dmrider/status/832091447579045889
To be fair, those street sweeping cuts in the budget ARE ridiculous. Who wants dirtier streets?
But if so many councillors were against this, why didn’t anyone move a motion during the debate to boost service levels?
They are really not coming up with a quick resolution for this.
Nunziata is back. She explains council can vary procedures with two-thirds vote & allow Crawford to introduce motion that’ll balance budget.
Budget chief Crawford moves to transfer $2m from reserves to fix this. That carries 39-4.
And the 2017 budget as amended, and balanced, carries 27-16. What an adventure that was.
