Mayor Olivia Chow's Toronto

[Richard White]

They are going to pony. Trudeau needs a lot of seats in Toronto's non-downtown ridings.

I wouldn't be so sure.

The Feds have been playing the "Toronto's problem, not ours" card for awhile now. As well the Liberals are not that bright at the moment, they have staff inflating their ego making them think they are doing an amazing job.

Pierre Trudeau alienated the west with his National Energy Program and Justin will alienate Ontario by abdicating all responsibility for problems he caused. I fully expect the Liberals to be decimated next election and Trudeau sent packing.

 

[evandyk]

I fully expect the Liberals to be decimated next election and Trudeau sent packing.

I expect that's true, but in an attempt to avoid it he will be showering the country with cash, and this will be part of it.

 

[toaster29]

I don't think they will pony up. There is anti-Toronto sentiment out there. There are people in Ontario/Canada who have modest 200k houses who pay more in taxes than people in Toronto with 2 million dollar homes, but Chow wants them (outside of Toronto) to pay even more so she can rename Dundas Street. I (as a Toronto resident and taxpayer) hope Trudeau holds firm and doesn't cave in. We pay pennies compared to someone with the same value of home/house anywhere in Canada.

 

[DSC]

I don't think they will pony up. There is anti-Toronto sentiment out there. There are people in Ontario/Canada who have modest 200k houses who pay more in taxes than people in Toronto with 2 million dollar homes, but Chow wants them (outside of Toronto) to pay even more so she can rename Dundas Street. I (as a Toronto resident and taxpayer) hope Trudeau holds firm and doesn't cave in. We pay pennies compared to someone with the same value of home/house anywhere in Canada.

The (knee-jerk and foolish) re-naming of Dundas Street is NOT happening. I bet the Feds do give $$ to Toronto but I am sure it will be targeted carefully and possibly for something only Toronto has to avoid having to give same $$ to (many) others. I guess we will know in 2-3 weeks and speculation is really not useful.

 

[Richard White]

I don't think they will pony up. There is anti-Toronto sentiment out there. There are people in Ontario/Canada who have modest 200k houses who pay more in taxes than people in Toronto with 2 million dollar homes, but Chow wants them (outside of Toronto) to pay even more so she can rename Dundas Street. I (as a Toronto resident and taxpayer) hope Trudeau holds firm and doesn't cave in. We pay pennies compared to someone with the same value of home/house anywhere in Canada.

I agree.

Toronto has kept taxes artificially low for years and now that has come back to bite them in the ass. It is not the Federal Governments fault that nobody wanted to raise property taxes properly for decades.

I am not a fan of the Ford's but they were right about one thing.. all the redundancy and bureaucracy at City Hall should be done away with. Nothing annoys me more than spending a bunch of money on reports, deferrals and advice for what should be a straightforward decision.

If limits were put on staff reports, legal advice and deferrals I bet you costs would be saved substantially. It shocks me how many times staff are asked to report back about a decision when it is not at all necessary.

 

[Towered]

I expect that's true, but in an attempt to avoid it he will be showering the country with cash, and this will be part of it.

Look how well last minute cash showering worked for Wynne...

 

[evandyk]

That's what the first four words I wrote were meant to say!

And I agree with everybody else that Toronto's property taxes are too low, though I also think the federal government should do more to ensure that refugee claimants are not living on the streets or in shelters.

 

[EddyMCD]

I'm sure the Toronto Liberal MPs want to provide the bailout. But I think optically the Liberals don't want to be seen nationally as "catering" to Toronto and giving them favors. Even though we all know they should be based on the disproportionate amount of taxes Toronto generates for the country.

 

[evandyk]

And more importantly for the Liberals, the large number of swing ridings outside the downtown core.

 

[Northern Light]

I'm sure the Toronto Liberal MPs want to provide the bailout. But I think optically the Liberals don't want to be seen nationally as "catering" to Toronto and giving them favors. Even though we all know they should be based on the disproportionate amount of taxes Toronto generates for the country.

The only fig leaf required is to provide funds for sheltering refugees/asylum seekers to every jurisdiction on a per person being sheltered basis; that's not an unfair ask, and no other jurisdiction will object.

 

[generalcanada]

The only fig leaf required is to provide funds for sheltering refugees/asylum seekers to every jurisdiction on per person being sheltered basis; that's not an unfair ask, and no other jurisdiction will object.

I dont think anyone would object to providing funding for asylum capacity, Its just that the funding required across all jurisdictions is way more than the feds can provide.
from quebec city to vancouver to peel region. They all need hundreds of millions in funding

 

[Northern Light]

I dont think anyone would object to providing funding for asylum capacity, Its just that the funding required across all jurisdictions is way more than the feds can provide.
from quebec city to vancouver to peel region. They all need hundreds of millions in funding

That is well within Ottawa's capacity to provide. Its not even a rounding error on a budget of ~350B per year.

 

[evandyk]

Toronto (I assume GTA) gets about 40% of Canada's immigrants a year, so napkin math suggests giving the City of Toronto $250M would be a commitment of about $1.25B across the country if you extended it proportionately.

They could take it out of the $13B earmarked for Volkswagen, if there's anything left after making Via fast and efficient, and ending homelessness.

 

[Amare]

One of the problems with this Federal government is that they love to make cute little announcements/commitments, but when it comes down to getting money out of the door and spending it takes them eons to actually do it because they're out in la la land daydreaming.

So assuming they actually pony up money and commit, another thing to watch would be how slowly *I mean "quickly"* they would funnel the money to the city.

 

[Northern Light]

One of the problems with this Federal government is that they love to make cute little announcements/commitments, but when it comes down to getting money out of the door and spending it takes them eons to actually do it because they're out in la la land daydreaming.

So assuming they actually pony up money and commit, another thing to watch would be how slowly *I mean "quickly"* they would funnel the money to the city.

The lapsed time on some Federally designed infrastructure grant programs the City has applied to in the not so distance past, suggest a lapse time of up to 2 years to get approval to spend/money in hand.

We're not talking complicated projects here either.