The city is long overdue for a full and proper budget inspection
Olivia Chow had a choice. Toronto’s Mayor could have rolled up her sleeves and got to work going through the City’s budget to find savings and hold the line on excessive cost increases. Instead, she chose to grow the budget by a billion dollars and then push for one of the largest tax increases in recent city history right when regular folks are facing an affordability crisis. It’s a heartless thing to do given the state of the economy.
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On Wednesday, Chow proposed a 10.5 per cent property tax increase for the coming year. This will climb to 16.5 per cent if the federal government declines to provide Chow with the refugee housing funds she’s requested.
It would be one thing if Chow was bringing in this big ticket tax increase as a measure of last resort. But she has made no meaningful attempt at finding savings and efficiencies or performing any sort of spending or service review. In fact, Mayor Chow and Budget Chief Shelley Carroll actually voted against a service review a few months ago.
This is a shame. Toronto is long overdue for a full and proper budget inspection.
The City of Toronto’s operating budget has almost doubled in the past decade. It went from $9.6 billion in 2014 to the current $17 billion. Last year it was $16 billion, but Chow has added $1 billion right out of the gate.
People already feel like they aren’t getting good value for money. Given the state of congestion and infrastructure in this city, it feels like we’re receiving less, not more, when it comes to municipal services.
When it comes to policing, we definitely are getting less. Crime and public safety is one of the top concerns voiced by residents and yet we have several hundred fewer frontline officers than we did a decade ago, and that’s to serve a much larger population. Now, we will pay even more but still get less.
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Keep in mind, this massive tax hike comes after Chow struck a recent deal with Ontario Premier Doug Ford that saw the province contribute an extra $400 million for the year. Instead of using this money to balance the books, Chow appears to have put it towards her $1 billion spending splurge.
“The City has done its part to address opening pressures of $1.776 billion,” the budget documents proclaim. They don’t offer any evidence to back the statement up though. And now, Chow is passing the buck to the taxpayers to insist that they do her job of balancing the books.
This means the average household can expect to pay around $500 more per year in housing to cover these taxes. While homeowners will pay upfront on their property taxes, renters will also shoulder this burden, as this increase will be passed on to them via higher rents.
Make no mistake about it, these taxes are part of the cost of housing and Canada is in the midst of a housing crisis. Toronto residents are facing the worst of the crisis.
We also can’t tax our way to prosperity. If Chow takes more of people’s money without proposing any credible plan to responsibly manage the budget, that will only make the city a less attractive place to invest and do business. We can’t share the wealth if we don’t first grow the wealth.
But Chow has clearly made her choice. She’s taking the reckless tax and spend route. Now it’s up to members of council and city residents to make their choice. Will they let this budget stand or will they push for common sense amendments? Let’s hope they pick the latter.
Residents and businesses can participate in town halls, speak at the budget committee and, of course, send feedback to City Hall. Councillors get to grill the Mayor and then decide whether to vote for or against this massive tax increase. They should definitely not vote for it as is.
The people of Toronto deserve better and there are so many tools in the budget toolkit that can still be used. A meaningful line-by-line review is the most obvious. But we can also make use of attrition, to reduce the public service headcount without laying anyone off. We can institute a non-core services hiring freeze. We can separate programs into “need to haves” versus “nice to haves” and allocate resources accordingly. The list goes on.
Nobody said managing the city budget would be easy. But jacking up people’s taxes like this? Now that’s taking the easy way out.
This double digit tax increase will be remembered for a long time to come, especially by those struggling to pay the bills.
Anthony Furey is the Executive Director of The Stronach Foundation for Economic Rights. He ran for mayor of Toronto in the 2023 by-election.
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