Larry's Corner

The Toronto Act, More Taxes and the City of Hamilton
By Larry Di Ianni
(posted October 30, 2007)

We have been watching for months now Mayor David Miller and the City of Toronto trying to implement their new taxing powers under the City of Toronto Act. What we have witnessed is a gutsy (opponents might say foolish) Mayor touting the virtues of higher taxes in order to sustain an expensive and important city, Toronto.

We have also witnessed a divided Council; a divided community and some further attack on the tax-paying class in that city, those who have to pay the extra costs to sustain Toronto’s budget. We have also witnessed a City that hasn’t entirely solved its problems even with these new tax dollars. I wish David Miller and Toronto well in their quest to obtain fair funding from the province and the federal government.

I recall the media quizzing me when Toronto launched its efforts to revamp its Municipal statute and garner more authority from the province. I attended the meeting, upon invitation from the Mayor of Toronto, when the Premier gushed favourably on the changed relationship between the province and the city; and I recall Mayor Miller’s statement that with these new powers ‘Toronto has come of age’ or words to that effect.

Back home the media quizzed me; if it was good for Toronto, why not Hamilton? Were we being disregarded again? Why can’t we ‘come of age’?

I cautioned calm. Hamilton is not Toronto. Yes we have needs, but we don’t have the same profile regarding tourism, head office presence, population and the other important dynamics that differentiate our two communities.

My recommendation to staff and Council was to ‘track’ the evolution of Toronto’s newly acquired powers to see what impact their new authority would have on that community before we sought similar treatment from the province. I trust this has been done by our finance staff. Their recommendations would be interesting to receive.

I am as convinced now as ever that the solution given Toronto has as many faults, and maybe more, as it has virtues. I am pleased that our Mayor has abandoned his initial comments which suggested that if Toronto can tax more, we should be able to do that in Hamilton as well. This statement by our civic leader was understandably poorly received by citizens. A quick retreat from his position, clarifying, that Hamilton’s statute doesn’t give us the same authority as Toronto’s was well timed. He didn’t need this distraction going into our budget season.

Besides, Hamiltonians do not need new taxes even when disguised as land transfer premiums or vehicle registration fees. Hamilton is already overtaxed.

What Hamilton and Toronto need is a fairer deal from the province and the federal government. What the Mayor should be doing is pushing hard on the McGuinty government to finally upload the entire cost of Social Services downloaded by the Harris government. Mr. McGuinty’s initial steps to provide ‘one-time-funding’ for Hamilton these past four years is a good start. The formula must now be made permanent. What the Mayor should be doing is joining his colleagues in the Big City Mayor’s caucus to demand that the Federal government, awash in our tax dollar surpluses, spend some of that money in cities by giving communities like Hamilton and Toronto access to 1% of the GST. This gesture, along with the uploaded provincial responsibilities, would make Hamilton sustainable, lower property taxes and invest in our city much more than the commensurate reduction in GST being proposed by Mr. Harper.

The Mayor and Council’s motto should not be ‘more taxes, please’; it should be ‘more tax-fairness, or else!’

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