In which the Province of Ontario gives the city government more autonomy from the provincial level, including the ability to raise taxes on alcohol served at bars and restaurants, as well as on movie and concert tickets. This is good news, and a couple of points are in order:
1) Financially speaking, the new act is small change (One estimate I heard today was that the new powers would allow the city to raise another $50 million if vigorously exercised). The biggest prizes, a portion of the provincial sales tax and a municipal gas tax, got pulled off the table by the Province a long time ago, and the third really significant item, a municipal land-transfer tax over and above the provincial tax, seems to have dropped out of the document in the last couple of weeks. Hence the lack of one cheer.
Nevertheless, it will still get Toronto out from under the Provincial thumb a little bit.
2) As several news sources have reported, the same kinds of changes are likely coming for other Ontario municipalities, for The City of Toronto Act will serve as the template for the new Ontario Municipal Act.
These are small steps but all to the good. Currently, municipalities in Ontario are the "creatures of the Province", and can be pushed around whenever you have an anti-Urban government in power like the Mike Harris Conservatives. As The Star reports, the law"...will end provincial micromanaging of everything from putting a speed bump on a road to setting bar hours."
Politically, this should cinch Mayor Miller's bid for a second term. It should also help McGuinty in Toronto and some of the other Ontario cities. He has has fulfilled a promise (maybe his first!) to right some of the wrongs done to the urban areas under Mike Harris, and with the new Municipal Act there is more to come.
I also notice some good stuff coming out of Toronto City Council aimed at "fixing" the Tories disastrous amalgamation of Metro Toronto into The Megacity. I'll try to write on them over the course of the next couple of days.
as if anyone outside of toronto cares about what happens in your centre of the universe.
ReplyDeleteno one cares, you don't matter . . losers on the great political radar scope . . .
This is indeed good news. Now instead of just having the highest property taxes, Toronto will be able to lay claim to the highest restaurant, entertainment, whateverelse taxes. Very reminiscent of the liberal governments of NYC in the 70's which bankrupted that city. The beneficiaries, just about everywhere else.
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