TTC: Other Items (catch all)

[W. K. Lis]

And, bringing this back to Toronto and the TTC, it’s clear that Toronto’s tax take is insufficient to manage the city and the services it wants to provide and its citizens demand.

To give a few examples:

• Toronto’s ability to keep parks and street trees in good condition (trees, washroom facilities, etc) has plummeted.
• Its ability to fix potholes and do street cleaning has also suffered greatly, with many street drains completely backed up.
• Toronto’s SOGR backlog in every single department has increased. Every department!
• Toronto’s community facilities are increasingly oversubscribed and parents have a hard time getting access. Not to mention that some facilities have had such poor maintenance that they have to be closed at the last minute (I recall two cases in the last 6 months)
• And let’s not even get into TCHC…

Regardless of what you think of it’s tax rates, at the very minimum if your ability to maintain infrastructure is falling behind year after year you should consider whether you have too much infrastructure or a revenue problem.

New York City has a sales tax and income taxes and bridge tolls. Revenue tools Toronto does not have.

 

[allengeorge]

New York City has a sales tax and income taxes and bridge tolls. Revenue tools Toronto does not have.

Yes - I know.

Anyone who complains about high Canadian taxes should look at what it costs to live in California or New York. Between federal taxes, state and city taxes (and as pointed out, New York taxes a chunk of your income) you can pay as much, but get far less in terms of services. In states without as high a tax income tax take, your experience can vary wildly, from having non-existent government services to eye-watering property taxes that actually help fund services like education.

What is a big difference is that the amount you get paid in a given profession can be a lot higher, your job opportunities are more, and because the US is such a big market your purchasing power is also higher.

EDIT: I’ll also point out that NY has a large, large number of tolled highways. NYC is strongly considering (and may go through) with a congestion charge for Manhattan to help cover the cost of the MTA. There are way more user fees than people realize.

 

[Northern Light]

Why is this a point to be made? Yes, the most populated province, with areas of such high density is exactly where I would expect less would need to be spent per capita? Why is this a surprise to you? Economies of density - look it up, cost savings flow in areas of high population densities. What do you expect? Rural and remote Nunavut would be spending less per capita on their health care? Come on.

Umm, you do realize I think before I post, and responding as if to suggest I'm an idiot does nothing but make you look bad. If you don't understand the gist of my point, a question like "Why do you view that as a problem?" might be a more reasonable take.

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Evidence: (most recent data I could grab)

https://www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca/wp-content/uploads/Provinces-Hospital-Beds-Per-1000-Population-2015_16.pdf

Family Doctors per capita by province:

https://www.cma.ca/sites/default/files/pdf/Physician%20Data/14-FP_per_pop.pdf

*****

Notice something?

For less spending per capita, you're getting a lesser result, way fewer hospital beds, and fewer doctors.

That's not efficiency, its negligence.

 

[Northern Light]

Hard to buy votes with OpEx, always looks better when you’re buying shiny new things with CapEx. I’d say John Tory has been more egregious on the front of funding operations, and we can see the effect of that every day on the TTC, in our parks, on our streets, etc. The issue is now is the exact worst time to raise taxes, when the economy is in/entering a recession. If we wanted higher municipal revenue, the time was when the economy was growing, now it’s both politically and economically a difficult choice to make. We could be worse off though, considering that we already have a federal government that is loath to invest in/create their own infrastructure projects, having a provincial government that also avoided CapEx would certainly set our infrastructure back decades,

I essentially agree with what you're saying above.....but I do want to break some of it out.

Hard to buy votes with OpEx, always looks better when you’re buying shiny new things with CapEx.

Oddly, I think this isn't true. I know its common political instinct to cut ribbons. But I think operating investments can actually produce better, results w/the public, done properly. Let me acknowledge, up front, that small increases or decreases in personnel don't really move votes; and further that jobs that aren't public facing, or where the results of any under-staffing aren't seen quickly can be a tempting place to 'cut' from a political perspective to fund something with more flash.

But the thing w/operating expenses in many areas it that a wise increase can be seen and felt quite quickly, where a capital project may take years to come to fruition.

As an example, most Toronto recreation centres close mid-afternoon on Saturdays and Sundays around 4pm'ish.

For a comparatively small sum, 10-15M per year, you could open most of those facilities until 10pm on weekends. Not only would them being open be instantly felt, but so would reduced crowding in earlier portions of those weekend days.

Likewise, strategic improvements in TTC service can be felt pretty quickly. Particularly for routes w/low service frequency. Taking an every 20M bus to every 15M is possible on many routes by adding a single bus to one shift. Most long-haul routes w/lots of vehicles are already more frequent.

So if you took 10 low-service routes and bumped them to every 15M or better, you might be able to do that for 5M per year. Boost overnight frequency for about the same; add some additional overnight routes for maybe 10M per year.

Taken in the context of a 15B budget, these are relatively small sums that can create a very visible effect and a halo for politician who delivers them.

 

[allengeorge]

If you include the average garbage fee it’s in line with other cities as seen in the diagram

But the tax take is clearly not enough given that - at minimum - Toronto’s SOGR backlog is increasing. Not to mention all the other issues I listed (and it’s nowhere near an exhaustive list).

So, what’s your solution to that problem as well?

 

[turbanplanner]

But the tax take is clearly not enough given that - at minimum - Toronto’s SOGR backlog is increasing. Not to mention all the other issues I listed (and it’s nowhere near an exhaustive list).

So, what’s your solution to that problem as well?

Petition the government to give us some of the billions back we pay in provincial and federal income tax?

We spend half a billion on housing the homeless, nearly half of which are refugees that we didn’t bring in. How many other problems do the government dump on Toronto tax payers

 

[turbanplanner]

This statement as worded makes no sense.

Which makes it equatable to most of what you post.

****

I won't waste time in endless flaming. You are proudly selfish, it is what it is.

You’re angry because I’m right.

If you’re confused what I’m getting at you could ask for clarification instead of belittling me.

Nearly half of Canadians are within $200 a month of being unable to pay their bills, poll finds

And that's not the worst of it: A quarter of respondents are already unable to cover their bills and almost a third said an interest rate hike could throw them into…

financialpost.com

46% of Canadians $200 or less away from not being able to pay their bills | Globalnews.ca

The number of Canadians who are $200 or less away from financial insolvency at month-end has jumped to 46 per cent, up from 40 per cent in the previous quarter, as interest rates rise.

globalnews.ca

 

[turbanplanner]

N

In that case, get prepared for more assaults, more thefts and an increase in the unhoused living in encampments and subway stations.

What exactly is your proposed solution? You don’t want any more taxes, you don’t want to increase services, but you want the problems to go away. How?

The feds can pause bringing more refugees with zero place to house them, when the shelters are 50% refugees. Tory has been asking for over 5 years for some funds dedicated to this problem that is almost entirely dumped onto Toronto

 

[Northern Light]

You’re angry because I’m right.

Not in the least. I'm not particularly angry, somewhat disgusted, but not angry.

Also, you're not right, so the entire statement is without value.

If you’re confused what I’m getting at you could ask for clarification instead of belittling me.

Nearly half of Canadians are within $200 a month of being unable to pay their bills, poll finds

And that's not the worst of it: A quarter of respondents are already unable to cover their bills and almost a third said an interest rate hike could throw them into…

financialpost.com

46% of Canadians $200 or less away from not being able to pay their bills | Globalnews.ca

The number of Canadians who are $200 or less away from financial insolvency at month-end has jumped to 46 per cent, up from 40 per cent in the previous quarter, as interest rates rise.

globalnews.ca

This is somewhat misleading. You can earn 200k per annum and be $200 per month from having to dip into savings.

For some Canadians, the problem is not that they are $200 per month from having to cut one of their streaming services, or maybe flying economy on their next vacation, but instead that they already are $200 short of the money they need for groceries.

*****

Lets further note, this is actually an opinion poll, and both sources you cited refer to the same poll. Not exactly sound data points.

*****

Then lets note that if the average Toronto homeowner saw a 10% property tax hike, that would be ~$400 more, per YEAR, not month.

An extra $33 per month roughly.

 

[Northern Light]

Petition the government to give us some of the billions back we pay in provincial and federal income tax?

So your answer to the need for more money for services is to cut taxes? That's a non-answer and 100% trolling.

We spend half a billion on housing the homeless, nearly half of which are refugees that we didn’t bring in. How many other problems do the government dump on Toronto tax payers

As at last March, refugees accounted for 30% of those in Toronto's shelters, which is not a small matter, but also not 'nearly 1/2' .

Toronto generally seeks to recover about 80M from the Federal government each year (w/some limited success) to cover those costs.

I do think its entirely fair to ask the Federal government to cover the cost of their direct policy choices. Though that doesn't begin to address overall homelessness in Toronto.

 

[allengeorge]

The feds can pause bringing more refugees with zero place to house them, when the shelters are 50% refugees. Tory has been asking for over 5 years for some funds dedicated to this problem that is almost entirely dumped onto Toronto

Shelters are not 50% refugees. If you have a source for that, back it up. Also, refugees aren’t causing the issues on the TTC.

I’ll also point out that when the encampment raids were happening, many of those in the encampments didn’t want to use shelters for various reasons: for safety, because they didn’t want to follow the rules, or more. So, even if refugees were magically disappeared from Toronto’s shelter system, how would you deal with these individuals?

 

[allengeorge]

Nearly half of Canadians are within $200 a month of being unable to pay their bills, poll finds

And that's not the worst of it: A quarter of respondents are already unable to cover their bills and almost a third said an interest rate hike could throw them into…

financialpost.com

46% of Canadians $200 or less away from not being able to pay their bills | Globalnews.ca

The number of Canadians who are $200 or less away from financial insolvency at month-end has jumped to 46 per cent, up from 40 per cent in the previous quarter, as interest rates rise.

globalnews.ca

This survey was taken in 2019. Since then we’ve had the COVID pandemic, and a large succession of rate hikes. Contrary to the alarmist tone in that article, which talked about the effect of rising rates from 1.75% we have not seen a massive increase in financial insolvency.

 

[allengeorge]

Petition the government to give us some of the billions back we pay in provincial and federal income tax?

I’ll point out that a number of us have advocated for the provincial government to get back into the business of funding affordable housing and paying more for social services. This shouldn’t be a Toronto-only problem.

Unfortunately, this is not cheap, and the provincial government has shown zero desire to do this. Instead, they have - as Paul (@crs1026) pointed out - simply engaged in cheap giveaways like removing tolling and licensing fees, and then crying poor to the federal government.

What we are seeing is result of such short-term, cheap thinking, and a lack of seriousness in addressing these issues.

 

[allengeorge]

I’ll say one more thing:

We do have to have an adult conversation about the level of services we provide, which level of government should pay for them, and how much our taxes are going to be. Engaging in magical thinking that we can tax cut, or somehow get money from other levels of government without having to raise taxes or cut services is fanciful.

I don’t mind people being up front and saying “I don’t want to pay taxes, and here’s all that I’m willing to cut to achieve it, including these services I use and care about”, but as a society we don’t. Instead, a lot of people want to believe that there’s a magical gravy train somewhere or huge inefficiencies, and somehow they can get more while paying less.

It’s. Just. Not. Possible.

 

[turbanplanner]

So your answer to the need for more money for services is to cut taxes? That's a non-answer and 100% trolling.



As at last March, refugees accounted for 30% of those in Toronto's shelters, which is not a small matter, but also not 'nearly 1/2' .

Toronto generally seeks to recover about 80M from the Federal government each year (w/some limited success) to cover those costs.

I do think its entirely fair to ask the Federal government to cover the cost of their direct policy choices. Though that doesn't begin to address overall homelessness in Toronto.

I know it’s normally 30% but was 50% during the Syrian crisis and I don’t see why it would be lower now with the Ukraine issue. A lot of homeless in Toronto are from other parts of the province as only we have the resources to at least try and help them