[URBAN NOTE] "Toronto’s Problem? Our Public Sector is Poor While Our Private Sector is Booming"

[rfmcdonald]

Myer Siemiatycki's call in Torontoist for higher property taxes, to finance municipal operations and to deal with growing inequality, makes perfect sense to me.

Sometimes events collide to reveal truths too long unspoken. Now we know.

Toronto’s real problem is an impoverished municipal government in a city of unprecedented private wealth. It is odd that mounting evidence of municipal dysfunction now occurs at the same time that new records are set month after month for city real estate values. Public services and infrastructure in Toronto have hit crisis point at the same time that City Council refuses to adequately tax the higher reaches of record level residential property values.

The most recent list of Toronto troubles is long. Sweltering subway cars. Sweltering, perhaps soon to be freezing, school classrooms. New condo towers with recurring power blackouts due to inadequate city infrastructure. Not enough crossing guards at our schools. Not enough bus drivers to get kids there.

Then there’s the unfulfilled dream list. No money for long overdue transit improvements, for the glitzy new downtown park recently “announced,” or the City’s entire capital spending backlog now pegged at $29 billion. There is also the recurring annual hole of $500 million in the City’s operating budget to cover day-to-day expenses.

The City quite simply does not have enough money to go around. Public facilities literally crumble and break down, public services decline, public jobs can’t find people willing to work for wages that put even the poverty line out of sight. And our infrastructure deficit grows.