BurlOak
Senior Member
The various panels and their recommendations were just a dog and pony show. The decision to implement a new tax is purely a political decision and she changes her mind depending on what is needed to stay in power.
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- Thread starter denfromoakvillemilton
- Start date
The various panels and their recommendations were just a dog and pony show. The decision to implement a new tax is purely a political decision and she changes her mind depending on what is needed to stay in power.
Grimace
Active Member
Fortunately her main competition in Hudak has shown himself consistently capable of doing what is needed to stay out of power.
nhui06
Active Member
No party is going to campaign on raising taxes to pay for GTA transit. Remember this is the Provincial election, so they have to take their message to the far North of Ontario and other areas that won't be affected by better transit in the GTA. Whichever party gets elected will probably add 'revenue tools' after the fact.
Liberals are in a tough spot - they screwed up with the Gas Plants and stuff, so it is hard for them to ask the public for more money - you can bet the PCs and NDP will hammer that point home. PCs can't run on that platform because they are usually the ones that cry foul on any tax increase. NDP's main support lies in Northern Ontario for the most part, so they too cannot just say they will raise taxes to improve transit.
TOareaFan
Superstar
Obviously, I can only speak for one voter (myself) but as a traditional conservative I had isolated transit expansion as my key issue....and I thought some combination of the Golden Panel and ML recommendations on funding with the money going to build the Big Move was the best hope we had....so was leaning towards holding my nose and casting a vote for the Liberal candidate in my riding......that notion slipped right of the table in the last few hours.
TOareaFan
Superstar
slight fix to your post if I may be so bold
nfitz
Superstar
She just moved to the NDP position.
This means that the Liberals and NDP have made a deal over the budget, and their won't be an election until 2015.
Incompetent government? So you think moving to the Tories would get away from that, with their continued support of the wife-beating bigoted crack addict of a mayor - and with their promise to cancel the Eglinton line? Or the NDP populists who cut GO service the last time they were elected?
innsertnamehere
Superstar
Wynne just posted this on facebook:
she may have found a way to get the 2 billion through corporate rates or something. Corporate rates were supposed to drop in 2017, she could probably cancel that and have the amount go to transit instead. Add a small corporate tax increase on top of that, add a commercial parking tax as well as development fees and land value capture, and you may be able to reach the 2 billion annually needed.
she may have found a way to get the 2 billion through corporate rates or something. Corporate rates were supposed to drop in 2017, she could probably cancel that and have the amount go to transit instead. Add a small corporate tax increase on top of that, add a commercial parking tax as well as development fees and land value capture, and you may be able to reach the 2 billion annually needed.
nfitz
Superstar
She seems to be adopting the NDP policy, so that there's no election until 2015.Wynne just posted this on facebook:
she may have found a way to get the 2 billion through corporate rates or something. Corporate rates were supposed to drop in 2017, she could probably cancel that and have the amount go to transit instead. Add a small corporate tax increase on top of that, add a commercial parking tax as well as development fees and land value capture, and you may be able to reach the 2 billion annually needed.
So whatever Howarth said they'd do with taxes I guess.
To be honest, if the choice is between an increased deficit and no transit being built, I'd take the former. Naturally I'd rather have a dedicated revenue stream (or streams) though.
andrewpmk
Senior Member
She did not say she won't bring back the PST did she? HST != PST
denfromoakvillemilton
Senior Member
2 billion is not enough for the GTA.
TOareaFan
Superstar
pretty sure the deal with the feds creating the HST precludes a re-introduction of a different pst
But that's working on the assumption that all funds have to come from the Province. They could be counting on the Feds for part of it, or they could be planning to introduce legislation that would allow all municipalities to create revenue tools for their own local projects (ie extra powers similar to what Toronto was given in the City of Toronto Act).
My point is that there are other ways to get to the amount needed instead of the Province paying the full fare. My guess is the $2B/year will be distributed amongst "regional" projects, or maybe that they will fund regional projects + 1 local project per region. If municipalities want more beyond that (ex: Toronto for Finch or Sheppard Phase 2), they can pay for them via their own revenue tools.
innsertnamehere
Superstar
outside of the BRTs, the majority of the big move projects are regional.
TOareaFan
Superstar
I think you would have to get agreement on a definition of regional. Is the Hurontario LRT regional? People in Brampton/'sauga might say yes cause it crosses their borders but others might say it is more a municipal thing....or, say, the RL (lost track of whether it is a D or a Y that goes before that)...never leaves the borders of the city of Toronto....is that regional or local/municipal.....may seem like semantics but if it comes down to limiting access to provincial funds...expect it to be very important semantics.