6.9% tax spike ‘will mean change in Torontonians’ lives’: Olivia Chow - Toronto | Globalnews.ca
6.9% tax spike ‘will mean change in Torontonians’ lives’: Olivia Chow - Toronto | Globalnews.ca
Mayor Olivia Chow and budget chief Coun. Shelley Carroll revealed the figure to reporters Monday as part of the city’s proposed budget this year.
“This proposed budget will mean change in Torontonians’ lives today. Change means libraries open seven days a week, transit fares frozen while TTC service increases and thousands more kids fed meals at schools and summer camps,” Chow told reporters at city hall.
“Pools open sooner and longer; renovictions prevented by taking housing off the market and more support for tenants; traffic agents to keep Toronto moving and emergency responders arriving sooner when you need them most.”
☝️Now that's how a politician should talk about taxes.
No one likes paying taxes, but I think that for most people who can afford to buy a home in this city, property tax is still significantly lower than provincial and federal taxes, and arguably you get more for your buck (the money is spent closer to home, by definition).
Yup. Anyone unhappy with property taxes should ask how Ford is spending their provincial income taxes.
5.4% property tax increase + 1.5% City Building Levy = 69‰ tax increase (nice)
People have to put behind them the Tory-Ford era of just cutting taxes and letting this amazing city rot. Nobody enjoys having to pay more, but if you know that these increases lead to actual positive impacts then people will be all ears.
As usual, Chow misleads the public - the biggest increase goes to the most generous ever public-union contracts, and I don't think that this will make TTC run better or the streets cleaner.
The services she mentions are run by people. There are no services without people. Good wages affect hiring, the quality of staff, retention and turnover. Why would that not affect the quality of those services?
Do we have to wait for inflation to outpace wages enough for people to start quitting the services, like nurses are, to realize that good pay is important?
Also weren't those workers have their pay increases capped to 1% per year during the post-COVID inflation period by Bill 124?
In addition pay anywhere, whether being in public service, or private firms is used as comparison by employeers and employees elsewhere. If a place pays better, it's used by employees at another place to ask for better wages. If a place pays less, it's used by employers elsewhere to give lower wages. Better wages across the board are good for the economy and all working people, up to the point where they start driving up inflation. We're not anywhere close to that. If you've heard the term "wages haven't caught up to inflation", the process of catching up is people negotiating higher wages. Just like the current example. Without it, we get poorer and poorer over time. Might sound familiar.
It just creates a two tier system where luck few who managed to get government jobs enjoy full benefits, indexed salaries, etc and the rest have to do precarious gigs at temp agency with night shift at minimum wage. If so called "socialists" cared about ALL working people, I would have less problems with this. Another problem is that a lot of government services like TTC are very expensive, but also very inefficient - I don't know if you use TTC and were able to use public transport in other countries - we get charged premium prices for subpar services.