[URBAN NOTE] On Toronto, regional mass transit, and the need for taxes

[rfmcdonald]

The first question I had in mind when I heard of a conference on Greater Toronto Area mayors on regional trasnit, with councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong standing in for Rob Ford, was a simple "Where is our mayor?" The second was mild frustration that--as noted--Toronto stands alone in not favouring increased taxes to pay for better regional transit.

Denzil Minnan-Wong knew he was the skunk at the garden party even before he was asked directly if that’s how he felt on Wednesday, representing the only mayor openly disdainful of new taxes to pay for a massive Toronto region transit expansion.

The Toronto councillor stood in for Rob Ford on a CivicAction mayors’ panel discussing how the region will move ahead with taxes that can be dedicated to building more transit, and more quickly.

Minnan-Wong was seated among Oakville Mayor Rob Burton, Oshawa’s John Henry, Burlington Mayor Rick Goldring and Markham Mayor Frank Scarpitti. Each vowed their support for new taxes to pay for transit.

But only 24 hours earlier, Ford had issued the most recent in a series of rejections of such taxes or tolls. The Toronto mayor dismissed a city staff report endorsing a sales tax, gas tax, parking levies and higher development charges to contribute to Metrolinx’s $2 billion annual transit plan.

Perhaps fortunately, as documented in another Toronto Star article, premier Kathleen Wynne supports a rational non-casino based policy.

Speaking to a friendly audience of about 200 people at the CivicAction forum at the Allstream Centre at Exhibition Place, Wynne said the $50 billion in necessary infrastructure improvements over the next 25 years has to come from somewhere.

And that means tolls, parking surcharges, congestion charges or some other kind of dedicated tax in and around Toronto.

“New money has to be found,” the premier said Wednesday, adding she is “correcting the misconception” that funding for Metrolinx’s ambitious Big Move will magically appear from finding efficiencies.

“The Big Move will need $2 billion a year for approximately 25 yearsBig Move will need $2 billion a year for approximately 25 years; and that money will not be found within our existing budget,” she said.

“We can’t do it through property taxes, because they cannot sustain the size of investment that is required to fix our transportation woes, and nor can hard-pressed property taxpayers. This investment has to come from somewhere else.”