The Toronto sales tax

Toronto - and other cities we are smug about - should go to court for the right to impose city-based taxes. It takes a lot of money to get a city you can feel this smug about. That's why Larry Solway wants a Toronto sales tax.

The Straight Goods Cyber Forum
with Larry Solway

Commentary:

  OK OK, so I live in and love - nearly to distraction - the City of Toronto. (Notice the exalted capital letters.) OK so our esteemed overworked and underpaid publisher ensconced in his bucolic retreat in the Ottawa Valley thinks I should not be Toronto-centric. Got it all. I also "get it" that when I speak of my beloved lifelong home that I have to try to make it sound like I am also speaking for every city - from Ottawa to Victoria and back to Halifax. I'm not. Shamelessly. If what I say applies to your city - fine.
  Toronto is in the midst of an agonizing look at itself courtesy of the Toronto Star. The paper is spearheading Toronto's (and other municipalities) attempt to squeeze more money out of Ottawa and Queen's Park. Senior government levels have abandoned Toronto. The city takes more than it's share of refugees and immigrants. It is a magnet for the homeless and alienated from across Canada. It is obliged to cover (very badly) costs like homeless shelters, welfare, and accommodation for refugee applicants, most of day care, public transit, affordable housing and more.

Toronto is detested for the same reason many people detest America

  Recently I attended a Town Meeting at Innis College on the U of T campus. We were treated to the same old same old from a distinguished panel.
  Most provoking was the reminder: the rest of Canada hates Toronto.
  My wife insisted that I restrain myself and not rush to the mike to add to the comments. Uncharacteristically (for me) I obediently stayed in my seat. Had I not be restrained, I would have spoken clearly.
  Toronto is detested for the same reason many people detest America. It is our smugness verging on hubris. We are the best at everything. We have the best. In America they are fed patriotic mumbo jumbo with their mother's milk. They are the best democracy, have the best health care, best education, most freedom etc. etc.
  O.K. In Toronto we have a right to be smug, we have a beautiful waterfront, we have a thriving downtown. We have the third largest English speaking theatre in the world after New York and London. We have a great symphony orchestra. Our restaurants are among the finest in the world. We have a superb art gallery and a stunning museum. We support (almost) four daily newspapers. We have three major league sports teams. We will soon have an opera house, and perhaps a Frank Gehry-designed art gallery addition. Plus plus plus. We are the world's most multicultural city. Our neighborhoods absolutely reek with character. There is life on our streets. Our downtown vibrates with people.

No wonder people don't like Toronto when you examine what I have just written. We are not only one of the world's great cities, but look how smug I am about it.

  No wonder people don't like Toronto when you examine what I have just written. We are not only one of the world's great cities, but look how smug I am about it.
  At the Town Meeting it was all groaning and griping, with the exception perhaps of columnist Royson James who declared his undying love for the city. But everyone whined. We go with hat in hand to the federal and provincial governments begging for money and complaining that we are being treated unfairly but we have nothing to threaten the politicians with.
  I say it is time to stop whining and begging for handouts. It is time for Toronto, and all Canadian cities to act.
  First: give the lie to the assertion, even by such favoured lefties as Jack Layton, that we cannot pursue constitutional change. We should take our challenge to the courts and insist that cities should no longer have to beg for tax help, but have the right to impose their own income and sales taxes. (An agreement would have to be made to make those taxes deductible from current federal tax.) In Ontario we must no longer be, as we are now, "creatures of the province". It is demeaning. It is grossly unfair. It belongs in the 19th century.
  Second: bite the bullet. It costs money to be a Torontonian. We elected a buffoon for mayor whose only virtue was that he promised a tax freeze. (Even Judy Sgro, now an MP, reminded me that while she fights for new money for Toronto - she was and is a zero tax advocate.) The fattest of Toronto's fat cats voted for a tax freeze. They don't ride the TTC and they care nothing for the homeless or childcare or affordable housing.
  Toronto now votes a property tax increase that will amount to about $85 for an average priced home.
  With apologies to no one: it costs money to live in the greatest city in the country.

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