[goreckm]

I would gladly accept a 25% property tax increase if it will clear the streets, public transit, parks and ravines of crazies, addicts and vagrants. And not with a massive police budget increase, nor with more spending on the homeless industrial complex that makes park occupations viable, but instead through investment in supportive housing spread across the city, not just in downtown east.

Would a 25% tax increase even get us to the point of balancing our current budget given the feds and province don't seem like they want to help all that much? Let alone adding any services. Interesting times are certainly coming.

 

[sixrings]

Serious question.

Has anyone ever considered a Destination Marketing Fee or Tourism Tax like they have in Niagara Falls?

I thought David Miller did but it got shot down or at least it got so much negative feedback it never had a chance.

 

[EddyMCD]

The only way Toronto is solving it's budget issue without help from the Province or the Feds would be a regional sales or income tax, or some type of heavy road tolls. There is no way to cover the shortfall with property taxes alone.

 

[Cobra]

As a member of NATO, we can either spend it now, or wait until Putin tries to annex a member country; and in that case, we also put boots on the ground.

Is there evidence of that?

 

[Cobra]

The only way Toronto is solving it's budget issue without help from the Province or the Feds would be a regional sales or income tax, or some type of heavy road tolls. There is no way to cover the shortfall with property taxes alone.

Congestion charge - I think we're there

 

[picard102]

Is there evidence of that?

Is there evidence that an invasion of a NATO country would cost billions and require troops??

 

[Cobra]

Is there evidence that an invasion of a NATO country would cost billions and require troops??

But there hasn't been one..yet

 

[picard102]

But there hasn't been one..yet

There doesn't need to be one, to know what would happen if there was one. It's literally the whole point of NATO.

 

[tiffer24]

Obviously we could end NATO too. And NORAD. Think of the money we'd save.

 

[Richard White]

Can we get this thread back on track?

NATO and NORAD have nothing to do with Toronto.

 

[Towered]

Can we get this thread back on track?

NATO and NORAD have nothing to do with Toronto.

But they do - if war were to break out with NATO I imagine that Toronto would be a juicy target for one of those ICBM's...

 

[Admiral Beez]

Has anyone ever considered a Destination Marketing Fee or Tourism Tax like they have in Niagara Falls?

Niagara Falls is a opiate-strewn wasteland of shamble housing and rotted streets. I don't know what that city does with its tourism tax but I suspect it's not going to helping the local junkies and homeless or the infrastructure.

I'd like Mayor Chow to immediately look into the following:
1) Road tolls for all non-416 residents on the Gardiner and DVP. Or charge us all.
2) Reconsider tearing down the Gardiner from Jarvis to the DVP. It's a financial drain that those freeloaders outside the city need more than us.
3) Consider suing Ottawa for allowing in refugees but not providing housing for them (offer to join mayors of other cities in the suit)
4) Also do the above proposed tourist tax

 

[zang]

Is there evidence of that?

Considering he seems hell bent on rebuilding the Soviet bloc and/or reclaiming imperial Russian borders (including Alaska, which he claims is still Russian land), and several of those countries are NATO members, it’s fair to say that is a yes.

 

[EddyMCD]

Congestion charge - I think we're there

Yep, at this point if I was Chow I would be bringing motions to introduce a congestion charge and to cancel the Gardener east re-build. Lay it all on the PCs to either allow both items, or provide funding in their place to avoid them.

 

[zang]

Yep, at this point if I was Chow I would be bringing motions to introduce a congestion charge and to cancel the Gardener east re-build. Lay it all on the PCs to either allow both items, or provide funding in their place to avoid them.

Ford will wait until this "audit" is done. I don't see him actually expecting to find much in the way of savings. He's been through this before as a council member, and unless he thinks John Tory was somehow throwing money around, he knows he's not going to find anything.

It does however, allow for a scapegoat/delay. "Let's see what the audit says before we do anything."

I wouldn't be surprised if the audit doesn't remarkably take about, oh, 3 years to be completed.

Morari, Impedire, Mendacium