City services: Something's gotta give

Recently I've been chatting with friends about how tax money is spent on city services. Torontonians expect the city to operate smoothly, and when glitches occur, we notice. Whether it's the efficiency of garbage pick-up, the quality of TTC service, the condition of our city streets, the presence of public libraries and public health services, or the cleanliness of our parks and attractions, we expect a lot from our city.

My husband and I own our home and the property taxes we pay are not insignificant. I understand the principles of give and take - living in the city is expensive, but we have beautiful parks, many public services for children, families and the elderly, a world-class public library system, and decent roads. The city water I drink is clean and tastes good. The TTC, for all its recent troubles, gets me to where I need to go. Those of us who commute by bike are fortunate to be able to do so fairly safely.

But of course, there is never enough money for everything. Specifically, not enough tax money is generated to support the wide range of city services we want and expect. You can see at a glance what I mean when you take a look at this chart illustrating city expenses vs. city revenues provided by the City of Toronto web site.

So, what's a city to do? The answer is, we must compromise. But how, and on what?

In upcoming weeks and months, the mayoral candidates will be ramping up their campaigns. When listening to the positions and promises from the candidates, consider framing their arguments through a different lens: rather than focusing on what you want from your city, consider what you'd be willing to give up.

In a world of limited resources, where are you willing to compromise? Would you trade improved TTC service in exchange for reduced health resources for families and seniors? Would you pay more for public child care in exchange for more frequent garbage pick-up? How do you compare the need for affordable housing with the demand for clean water?

I certainly don't have the answers, but it's a different way of thinking about the candidates, and it's a perspective I'm going to try. At the very least, it will provide me with a new way of evaluating the campaigns as we get closer to Election Day on October 25.

About Kimberly Silk

A taxing situation

The constant call for cutting taxes that is used to troll for votes on the right -- along with more police and less gay pride -- tends to reverberate well among a number of the better off, especially those who feel victimized by having to contribute to the communal pot. It seems this group will always find and support a simplistic and bombastic candidate for mayor, as long as the mantra of less taxes and less government is first and foremost.  It would seem to be the only criteria that counts.

It puzzles me as to why some folks chose to live in Toronto while at the same time actively trying to dismantle what makes this city a worthy address. 

What are the benefits of being a city dweller? Step out your door and look around.  First and foremost, the diversity of languages, colours, dress and class. I remember old Toronto, having spent a year here in 1968: how terribly white and plain and stuffy and cold after the streets and sights of Montreal.  I couldn't wait to leave.  Now I can't imagine living anywhere else.

And then there are the summers, the public concerts, the celebrations, the book fairs, the arts, the joy of meeting new people, hearing new music, watching good documentaries.  And the food, every possible taste, every exotic spice, if you can afford to eat, you are in the best place in the world to do so.

The different neighbourhoods, the public offerings of individual gardeners, the glorious trees, the relatively clean sidewalks and streets, the parks, big and small, the lake and yes, even the streetcars all enhance our lives. 

We put our garbage out on the curb, and a truck comes and takes it away.  We bring our children to day care, and there are staff there to welcome them. Restaurants are inspected, our water is monitored, our drive home kept safe by patrol cars, and our lives protected by firefighters. Living in community means sharing, it's pooling and growing our tax dollars so that we have big buying power, to keep our transit running,  our garbage collected, our food safe.

We can't go back to having a city in constant turmoil, to having a populist for mayor who appeals to greed and the "I'm alright Jack" mentality of gated communities and gated lives. Toronto deserves better, we all deserve better. 

So ask yourself, what's this city worth? 

Preserve the gains Toronto has made.  Speak up for the city.  Speak out for good government, and our need to ensure it has the funds to govern well.

About Pat Capponi

Wanted: One serious advocate for artists

Stroll along Bloor between Dufferin and Lansdowne, and you see change a-comin’… Art galleries popping up in long-vacant storefronts. New design shops, bars and cafés so hip they don’t need signs (or keep the retro signage of previous occupants).

Artists began moving to this neighbourhood as they were priced out of other areas like Queen Street West and Parkdale. Some were even able to buy houses in this somewhat affordable corner of the downtown.

Like many Toronto neighbourhoods before, this one seems set for a renaissance, perhaps evolving into a creative centre, a hub for the entire City. Most recently, big-time videogame developer Ubisoft announced it will set up shop just north of the Lansdowne subway, with a plan to hire 800 high-skilled employees over the next few years.

A 2009 study by Hill Strategies Research mapped out where Canada’s artists reside. It’s no surprise that Toronto has the largest community of artists and cultural workers. Cultural workers in Riverdale, Beaches and Danforth represent between 13 and 15 per cent of the labour force residing east of the Don. The highest concentration of artists is in the downtown west-end, from Parkdale to Bathurst and north to St. Clair.

Actors, visual artists, dancers, musicians, writers. The City is crawling with them. We take for granted the depth of artists’ contribution and for too many Torontonians arts funding is an "extra," relegated to the backseat. In other big cities, like New York, artists are fleeing to smaller centres where they can afford a roof over their heads and studio space. New York is freaking out. They've glimpsed the future and the potential impact on their culture and economy, and it ain't pretty.

Luckily, in David Miller we had a mayor who understood the creative economy. The arts and cultural sector had an advocate. It’s no coincidence that Toronto’s film and television industry has experienced a healthy bump lately. That’s thanks in part to Mayor Miller’s responsiveness to the industry’s list of asks, largely met, not the least of which was making it easier to obtain film permits by reducing red tape.

And there was the recent budget decision to ensure the billboard tax finally went to the arts. Finally, Council is living up to its commitment to the Culture Plan by increasing Toronto’s per capita spending to a competitive level. In short, Miller created a “Film Friendly Toronto” in the worst of economic times… and we will reap the benefits well into the future.

There is so much more to be done, and it’s going to require a Mayor willing to advocate for Toronto’s artistic community by demanding change at the provincial and federal levels.

First, we need a Mayor willing to fight for Income Tax Averaging, ensuring more fairness for artists and other self-employed workers who would be taxed based on their average income over a set number of years. Far better than being penalized for one good year amidst, say, four really lean years.

The average earnings of Toronto’s 22,265 artists are nearly 40 per cent less than the average of other local workers. Depending on the particular form their art or craft takes – writer, screenwriter, actor, poet, painter, sculptor, filmmaker, dancer, etc – an artist may be lucky enough to belong to a union or guild that provides some insurance or retirement benefits, negotiates minimum rates and working conditions, and secures for them a little piece of the pie if their work is shown, used, sold in the future.

But even for those that benefit from such representation, most artists face enormous income insecurity throughout their career.

Our Mayor could demand that the Feds make the new EI benefits for self-employed workers REALLY work, and expand them to full benefits. The introduction of these benefits was a (rare) step in the right direction, but the criteria are such that – as currently envisioned – most artists won’t be able to take advantage.

Our Mayor could stand up to the province and demand fairness for film and television production in Toronto… So workers don’t have to truck out to distant locations just to film something that could more easily be made here, while producers take advantage of higher tax credits outside the City.

Our Mayor could continue and expand use of the planning process to ensure no net loss of artistic space in areas of dramatic change, like Queen St. West. And our Mayor could explicitly link cultural wealth to neighbourhood diversity by continuing to support affordable housing initiatives in the city core.

We need someone to continue along the path Miller laid out for us. As a City we need to embrace artists for what they bring to our lives, our neighbourhoods, and our economy. We need, in short, a Mayor willing to stand up for artists.

About Marit Stiles

Invest in energy efficiency -- it saves tax dollars

Think your energy bill is a high? You don’t know the half of it.

As a taxpayer, you also help pay the bills of the City, hospitals, schools and other public institutions. The City of Toronto alone spends more than $230 million a year on gas and hydro. Ontario’s hospitals rack up about a $200 million energy bill. Ontario universities and colleges shell out about $90 million per year to keep the lights on and the heat working.

So when it comes to public sector cost control, the real action isn’t in curbing paper clip use or other office expenses, it is in increasing energy efficiency.

We could cut institutional energy use by 10 per cent without even breaking a sweat. Kaaachiing – more than $50 million a year saved from just the folks listed above. With a bit of effort, 20 per cent reductions can be achieved -- now we’re into nine figure savings of more than $100 million a year. Push harder, with a longer payback period, and energy use can be slashed by at least 30 per cent -- anyone like the sound of around $160 million a year not being drawn from our tax dollars?

And there’s a double bonus. When our buildings aren’t leaking energy, our city and our province aren’t leaking money (to Alberta to pay for the natural gas). Those dollars will do a lot more good if we can keep them in our local economy and spend them instead on energy efficiency, renewable energy or combined heat and power systems.

Ontario has had a pretty rough ride in this "great recession" and we could use the jobs that come with improving the efficiency of our cities and institutions. Improving building efficiency creates an amazing 14 jobs for every $1 million we spend, and these are "green" jobs with staying power.

Oh, and there’s a triple bottom line: we stop burning energy, we stop burning money, and we stop climate change pollution.

So how are we going to plug the leaks, save some dough and save the planet? One of the biggest hurdles to implementing efficiency is access to capital – you need to invest to reap those savings and benefits for decades to come.

That’s why we need an efficiency-focused revolving fund – low-interest loans provide the up-front capital, are repaid from the savings, paving the way for the next loan...and so on. It's a specialized bank for public sector energy savers, and it pays dividends: lower draw on your tax dollars.

The City of Toronto has been using its own money and the $20 million Better Building Partnership fund to advance efficiency, and Toronto Atmospheric Fund also provides loans. But much, much, much more capital is needed to achieve anywhere near our efficiency potential, which is why provincial and/or federal financing is key.

Imagine -- schools could replace 50-year-old boilers, hospitals could replace inefficient lighting that is on 24/7, city buildings could get some badly needed insulation, recreation centres could get money- saving solar water heating systems, and we’d all be saving rather than "burning" our tax dollars.

So the next time a candidate comes to your door – during municipal elections, next year during the provincial election, whenever there’s a federal election -- and starts talking about cutting public sector expenses, ask them: what is your plan to ensure cash-strapped public institutions cut energy use?

About Julia Langer

There's no such thing as 'free' parking

"There is no such thing as free parking — even if you work at a parking lot." This Star headline, was prompted by a judgment made recently by the Honourable Justice T.E. Margeson where the appellant was the Toronto Parking Authority (TPA) and the respondent the Minister of National Revenue.

Essentially the ruling states that a parking space provided to an employee by their employer should be considered a taxable benefit that would attract Canada Pension Plan contributions.

If the judgment were applied further afield there could be tax implications for anyone who drives to work and parks their car in a space provided by their employer. Considering that an estimated 70 per cent of Canadians drive and park their cars free of charge on their employers’ property the financial ramifications for workers and their employers could be profound.

The challenge, of course, is that if an employer decided to purchase a transit pass for their employee instead of giving them a free parking space to use each day, their investment in transit would be considered a taxable benefit.

If you consider this point in the context of the current transit dialogue that’s gripped the city it seems that at the very least our tax laws should be aligned with our community goals. If we want more people to use transit and use their autos less, then commuters deserve a choice and we could start by acknowledging that parking is not free, it’s a benefit and we should have to pay for the luxury.

Determining the economic value of a parking space at a TPA lot or garage is easy; they have a big sign out front with the prices listed. On this point the parking authority argued that it does not lose money because the lots aren’t full, and that no one is guaranteed a space. Unfortunately for the TPA and its employees their arguments concerning the value of the benefit didn’t sway the court and if they park without paying, it’s a taxable benefit.

At a suburban office park the value of an "employee parking" space is more difficult to assess, but it can be done. Land values in most of the GTA have approached the $1 million an acre mark, and the cost of building and maintaining a parking lot can range between $20 and $50 a month per parking space.

So the parking space that millions of Canadians use each day does have a value and given surface parking lots are one of the more dominate land forms in our cities it might be useful if we take a closer look at how much all this free parking is actually costing us.

About Lorenzo Mele

Panhandling licence an attack on the poor

I knew that it would only be a matter of time before a ridiculous notion was neatly tucked between eloquent words and antiquated conservative rhetoric.

Okay, let me get this straight. I’m walking down Queen St. West, taking in the fashion, the art, the food and the beautiful sunshine. Suddenly I see a non-threatening individual holding out a cup, soliciting change from passersby. I look for their licence. They don’t have one. I report them to the police, who pick them up, hold them overnight and fine them for not having a licence.

The panhandler is now in the system for not having a panhandler’s licence. However, now they have this fine to repay. So it’s back to Queen Street they go, where they hold out a cup. Then, as luck would have it Mr. Bordonali sees this individual, asks for their panhandler’s licence and alas a downward cycle impoverishment begins.

What kind of city are we when we start licensing the poor? Are we also going to do credit checks on Ontario Works applicants to ensure that they’ve exhausted every possible avenue for income?

How about we ensure that the disabled do a physical with a city-approved doctor to confirm that they are, in fact, disabled and worthy of ODSP? Or better yet, let’s do language tests for non-English-speaking newcomers who need use settlement services? And if nobody makes the grade, we should charge them for fraud. If I could find an eloquent way to say this I would, but this idea is stupid. It’s also offensively primitive. We’re missing the root causes of this whole issue: the widening gap between rich and poor.

Toronto is heralded as powerful centre for commerce. It’s true that we are enviously regarded as the economic engine of Canada. However, this is also a city where youth unemployment is more than twenty percent and the number of people claiming employment insurance skyrocketed from 22,000 to more than 42,000. In true, survival of the fittest fashion, panhandlers seem to be taking matters into their own hands.

People don’t panhandle for the perks. Contrary to conservative belief, there is no real upside to being poor. Tempting as it is to believe, the many, many, many perks that come with sitting on the concrete all day, holding out a cup with hopes that someone will drop a toonie, rather than the pennies, nickels and dimes that many of us prefer to leave, don’t add up to very much.

And more importantly, what would it take to implement something like this?

I will assume that there will be no more surprise surpluses or bailouts any time soon, which means no new revenue streams. So this program would probably be paid out of tax dollars. So what is the cost to taxpayers?

I suppose there needs to be administrative staff monitoring the panhandler master list and the licences. There also needs to be someone responsible for issuing and collecting fines and maybe even some staff to co-ordinate information sessions on “how to get a panhandlers licence." Sounds like a typical municipal program, except for one thing: an assumption of compliance.

Do we really think that panhandlers will be falling over themselves to comply with licensing requirements? Chances are they won't, and then what? What happens to non-compliant panhandlers? Will they be fined, or worse, detained? To do so would put further strain and result in nothing productive. In Ontario it costs upwards of $140 every day to detain someone and $25 per day for alternative measures like probation. This doesn’t include the cost of policing the streets to find the insolent culprits who managed to dodge the first warning. Is this where we really want our tax dollars to go?

I have an idea: stop poor bashing. Licensing the poor won’t make this city socially or financially rich. Long term commitments in what this city really needs (i.e. housing, childcare) is where we need to shift our focus.

About Tonika Morgan

Why a $5 road toll makes good sense

Lorenzo Mele.

Congratulations to Sarah Thomson, candidate for Mayor of Toronto, for introducing us to her bold vision to support transit expansion in the city. Thomson seems to understand that Toronto needs more than a "cap in hand" funding strategy to support transit expansion since senior levels of government are growing weary of bankrolling our transit vision. And we can’t forget that once the subway and LRT systems are built, money is needed to operate, maintain and ultimately replace them.

The challenge is that such a powerful economic measure must be considered in broader terms than simply collecting $5 from each motorist using the DVP and the Gardiner Expressway to fund subways instead of light rail transit.

As a candidate in a municipal election, it takes courage to introduce unpopular ideas, and it would be unfortunate if we devolve the important discussion that Thomson has started down to the simple "war on cars" or 416 versus 905 struggles. We deserve an informed civil debate to better understand how we might apply a tried-and-true economic strategy to improve traffic congestion, air quality, and fund our transit and cycling dreams.

Road pricing or tolls were used in Roman times, places like Singapore continue to evolve road pricing schemes first introduced there in 1975 as a way to manage ever-growing traffic congestion, and charging a fee for a good or service is the very foundation of our revered market economy.

The "law of supply and demand" is applied effectively to virtually every aspect of our consumer society, save for transportation. Tolls or road pricing implemented strategically across the GTA and Hamilton (not only on the DVP and Gardiner Expressway) and combined with improved transportation services (transit, bike lanes, rapid transit, vanpools, carpool lanes and parking lots, community shuttles) and better land use planning that puts people and the places they need to go to closer together, would transform the way we choose to travel around our city.

Along with rising fuel costs, road tolls would give motorists an economic incentive to seriously consider travel choices other than the private automobile. Overnight we would see increases in carpool activity, and transit use, more employers would allow their employees to work from home, and some people might decide to work closer to where they live or live closer to where they work so that they could cycle or even walk to work.

The interesting thing is that the future is here with respect to road pricing since we have a world class example right in our own backyard. According to www.tollroadnews.com in 2009 the 407 ETR (Express Toll Road) had revenues of $560 million and average weekday trips of 380,000.

The challenge with the 407 ETR is that "we the people" no longer own the highway so we don’t share the revenue, and although that’s a matter that I won’t address through this blog, we are collectively benefiting from having a alternate parallel route to the 401 and Highway 7 that is used daily by transport companies delivering our goods and services and commuters, the majority of which likely have a 905 area code.

Experience world wide has demonstrated that travel demand can be better managed with road pricing than without. As our population grows and our municipal budgets shrink due to competing spending priorities, road tolls will become a vital ingredient in our transportation future as we strive to maintain the quality of life of everyone in our city and surrounding regions.

About Lorenzo Mele

Forget the Grammys -- watch the Teddys

From Liquor Control Board of Ontario folk knocking back pricey bottles of wine at chi-chi restaurants, to councillors expensing chipmunk or bunny suits to school board trustees charging back trips to the Dominican Republic to taxpayers, it's no wonder why many MTV Generationers view City Hall as being one big phat court, filled with too many jesters. Silly season.

While forking out dough to rent Dalmation outfits for the public good might seem noble at the time, these acts are making city councillor Rob Ford look like a Steve Jobs-like genius – which is not an easy thing to do (the same Ford who got loaded at a Leafs game and started a scene, who once proclaimed that “Oriental people are slowly taking over”, and that "AIDS is very preventable,” and that “if you are not doing needles and you are not gay, you wouldn't get AIDS probably”). Ford, who routinely bills taxpayers for nothing, strikes me as someone who might actually spend money out of his own pocket to rent polar bear suits.

What I’m suggesting to my MTV Generationers (and to those select, tapped-in Baby Boomers who understand that Tim Deegan is not the name of a doughnut franchise) is that it’s time to forget about the Grammys and the BET Awards (pure and utter sacrilege, I know).

Sorry, but it should be all about the Teddy Awards now. The Canadian Taxpayers Federation dole out Teddy awards to those who’ve wasted tax dollars. And a big congratulations is in order for Toronto, which won this year’s municipal Teddy for inane activities like paying people $100 to pretend to be living on the streets, for tallying homeless count purposes.

What I’m suggesting as a means to wade through these questionable tax dollar expenditures is to develop an easy-to-understand website -- that even Much Music watchers can understand -- that analyzes data so that people can influence how their tax dollars are spent.

When your local area city councillor is busy burning your taxpayer cash on giraffe (or chipmunk) suits, it's time to take action. Now.

While voter apathy is nauseating and counter-productive (what, you like them bear suits that you unknowingly paid for?), being an armchair critic that hurls objects at CP24’s Stephen LeDrew is getting you nowhere. It’s time to call, fax, write and email City Hall. Meet with your elected officials. Write letters to the editor. Spend some time scrutinizing all of this publicly available info that is up on the City of Toronto website. Everything from your mayor’s and local area city councillor’s salary, to their detailed office expense reports are up there. Sitting on your duff will do nothing to advance the cause of stifling your local area councillor’s penchant for bunny rabbit suits and House of Lancaster lunches. All of which you’ve paid for, Tony (or Tonya) Taxpayer.

About Dalton Higgins

Spending smart at City Hall

Justin Van Dette.

It’s budget season again and obviously we’re going to be hearing a bit of the recycled excuses on why the budget is so challenging. We’ll be hearing the blame game, about who did what many years ago, and why the city can't cut anymore. Personally I'm getting a little tired of the words "previous administration" that we hear from time to time especially when the current ones at City Hall and Queen’s Park have been in power since 2003.

What amazed me is how all of a sudden all of this new money – about $100 million taxpayer dollars - was found in an almost "hocus pocus" magical way -- almost the kind of thing you would read about in a fairy-tale. Toronto Star columnist Royson James called it “political theatre” and it was simply just that.

I agree with Toronto mayoral candidate George Smitherman who added that these kinds of “tricks are for kids.”

We hear it over and over again from many inside the twin towers at the corner of Bay and Queen; how difficult it is to find any savings. We’re reminded that the City isn’t running a deficit but what we are running is a “structural deficit” which involves the spending of precious dollars that we simply don't have and looking to the taxpayer and asking them to pay more and fund more pet projects.

Many of these tax increases year after year have been above the rate of inflation, and as the famous John Smith recently told the Budget Committee, the tax increases are taking their toll on taxpayers who simply can't afford to pay more.

Some have talked about a “hiring freeze” but we still have job postings on the City website. Not much of a freeze that I can see.

Non-unionized employees are told to take a freeze but the elected council and unionized staff are getting wage increases. No fairness or demonstration of fiscal restraint there. In fact, when council had a motion from Councillor Case Ootes calling for a freeze last year, which would have demonstrated strong, symbolic leadership before going into important negotiations with the city’s unions, council chose not to take that position.

The bicycle lane budget is another area that I would revisit and think twice about devoting all those dollars. Did those approved and expensive changes on Jarvis really need to happen especially since the next arterial road to the east, Sherbourne, already has a bicycle lane. The amount of spending has me concerned. And of course we heard just this week that a movement is afoot to bring a 24 km bikeway on Bloor-Danforth.

To me, it’s all over-spending, especially when we don’t have two nickels to rub together and when the city has next to nothing in the reserves to deal with increased unemployment and welfare claimants.

I would rather see those funds allocated for the city’s bicycle plan directed to the backlog of road and sewer repairs that we have in our city, and apparently the backlog amounts to multimillions of dollars. Too bad we can’t go back and revisit the bicycle racks that were installed on all of those buses. I ride transit every single day, and being brutally honest, I think I’ve only seen three or four bikes on those racks since they first got installed.

Some reading this might think that I’m anti-bicycle, which I’m not. To me, it all comes down to investing in core and very important municipal services. The comedian at the recent Ireland Fund Lunch talked about how the Mayor cleaned his office and found $100 million. Seriously though, it makes me wonder how many more savings can be found at City Hall.

About Justin VanDette

What's behind Miller's sudden budget surplus?

 I just came out of the Mayor's "important" announcement about this year's budget.

Besides the fact that he played coy with the media and the public by sending out a vague and cryptic media advisory, the Mayor's announcement of a $100 million surplus was surprising, but not shocking. With the increase in revenue from the Vehicle Registration Tax, the Land Transfer Tax, water rate increase, garbage tax, and other user fee increases, it is easy to see how the "surplus" could take place. I still find it surprising that the Mayor uses the word "surplus" to describe a budget that includes a tax increase. A true surplus means no tax increase in my books.

The Mayor will definitely have some explaining to do as to how the budget process created this surplus "out of the blue," when just a couple of months ago the budget hole was more than $500 million. Critics will definitely claim that the Mayor hid the surplus until it was politically opportunistic to use it.

Okay, enough of my cynicism, while the surplus was a surprise, the proposed allocation of that surplus was miraculous!

Instead of using the surplus to go on a spending spree, the Mayor has suggested using 25% of the money to reduce the residential property tax rate to 2.9% and the rest of the money to create a reserve fund to be used to offset the pressure for next year's budget process.

Wow! Where did this Mayor come from??

I think I have the answer...

One word: Legacy!

With this announcement, Miller has attempted to selflessly prepare the City and the new Mayor for the budget challenges that lie ahead. He has also created an opportunity for the left on Council to shift to the centre in order to be re-elected this year. With this new budget direction, the councillors and mayoral candidates on the left will be able to knock on doors during the campaign and show that they do have a prudent approach to governance and they aren't the spendaholics that the right has been successful at framing them as.

You have to hand it to the left on Council. When the chips are down, they do what ever it takes to remain in control, including becoming Conservatives.

This sudden epiphany will definitely cause tension on the left. The special interests groups will be raving mad about this announcement over the coming days and weeks. Who knows, Council may reverse this decision and spend away the 2011 reserve fund.

For the sake of the future of the City, I certainly hope that they maintain this direction, but as we all know, anything is possible at City Hall.

About Dan Bordonali