[W. K. Lis]

Tim Hudak has stated that under a PC government, he and his MPPs will make sure subways will be built east in Scarborough aka extending Sheppard to the Scarborough Town Centre. It's merely a political campaign promise as the Tories know they can't win in the heart of Toronto so they'll do what Rob Ford did and promise subways in Scarborough. The Tories will have to pick up seats in the GTA if they want to form a government, even a minority.

How to pay for it? By cutting all the other transit projects in Toronto, Mississauga, Hamilton, Waterloo, etc.

 

[SJD_Toronto]

How to pay for it? By cutting all the other transit projects in Toronto, Mississauga, Hamilton, Waterloo, etc.

Bingo.

To be honest, I think 3 of the 4 "revenue tools" are rather balanced and fair, but the 5-cent gas tax is, in my mind, political suicide. Replace the 5 cent gas tax with something else - oh wait, the Grits want to add HOT lanes. So I'd rather have a 1% sales tax, parking levies, development changes and HOT lanes.

 

[W. K. Lis]

I think when or if they implement the public transit revenue tools, that they should be done slowly and gradually. For example, .25% sales tax increase in the first year, .50% for the second, .75% for the third, and then 1.00% in the fourth.

 

[nfitz]

The same way they deal with the sales tax at Amazon.com, where the buyer is from New York City (8.875%), Niagara county (8.000%), Erie county (8.750%), or Albany county (8.000%), where they are all in New York State.

Ah, I didn't know that. Of course the best deal is when shipping to Canada ... they don't collect anything (though I haven't done it for a while - and Barnes and Noble used to collect GST).

Amazon.co.uk is also great, as they don't charge VAT (British sales tax of 20%) - and though you have to pay shipping, it's a lot cheaper than the VAT!

 

[nfitz]

Tim Hudak has stated that under a PC government, he and his MPPs will make sure subways will be built east in Scarborough aka extending Sheppard to the Scarborough Town Centre. It's merely a political campaign promise as the Tories know they can't win in the heart of Toronto so they'll do what Rob Ford did and promise subways in Scarborough. The Tories will have to pick up seats in the GTA if they want to form a government, even a minority.

They've also promised to stop work on the current LRT projects, and not start the subway work until they balance the budget. They've announced they plan to cut taxes long before they balance the budget. If you put all the promises together, there's no chance that they'd be building any subway in their first term ... and I'd be surprised if they've balanced the budget in the second term unless there's a huge boom.

So effectively, Hudak is promising nothing.

 

[King of Kensington]

The Ontario NDP is now a populist party. Don't expect them to support any new taxes or fees for transit.

As someone who is generally an NDP voter, I must agree.

 

[gweed123]

So effectively, Hudak is promising nothing.

That's completely untrue! He's made a very firm promise on buck-a-beers .

 

[rbt]

Tim Hudak has stated that under a PC government, he and his MPPs will make sure subways will be built east in Scarborough aka extending Sheppard to the Scarborough Town Centre. It's merely a political campaign promise as the Tories know they can't win in the heart of Toronto so they'll do what Rob Ford did and promise subways in Scarborough. The Tories will have to pick up seats in the GTA if they want to form a government, even a minority.

And how many subways did Rob Ford built to Scarborough? How many did he even try to build?

He had several opportunities to raise the funds and put together something. He even had the province on board if the city kicked in some cash, and it would have been affordable to the city.

Instead, Ford gave us a year with a 0% property tax increase. If you change that to 3%, there are your funds for a Sheppard extension to SCC.


Hudak also promised in the last election to eliminate the deficit, then cut taxes, then consider transit spending; in that order. That's a 10 year plan where you start thinking about the subway in 2025 (end of 2nd term).

At some point the electorate needs to look at the stated priorities and realize they conflict then figure out which ones are real priorities and which ones are round-tuits (if we get around to it).

 

[innsertnamehere]

I am becoming increasingly convinced the liberals will win the next election anyways. The PCs election machine needs some serious oiling, and a new leader, if the last election is any indicator. the Liberals elections office in the meantime runs like a well oiled machine and can get a near majority out of an election that is theirs to lose. If the Liberals go into the election with polling high(like they are now), they could easily come out the other side not only with another minority, but a majority.

 

[ReadScout]

I find it ridiculous that this process started 5 years ago, when corporate income tax at Prov was at what, 14%?

Now corporate income tax is at 11.5%. Each percent is estimated to bring in approx $1 billion annually.

So.

So corp income tax got a $2.5 billion tax decrease annually, and now it is proposed that we increase taxes/fees on individuals by $2.4 billion annually.

This is a solution in search of a problem I think.

I find most people advocating for the new fees are understandably desperate. But I also find they're so desperate for transit they will swallow anything (including regressive tax policies) without looking into it deeper.

 

[innsertnamehere]

I wouldn't be surprised if the HST gets replaced with that anyways. Horvath will probably mandate it for support, so I wouldn't be surprised if it happened.

 

[W. K. Lis]

I am becoming increasingly convinced the liberals will win the next election anyways. The PCs election machine needs some serious oiling, and a new leader, if the last election is any indicator. the Liberals elections office in the meantime runs like a well oiled machine and can get a near majority out of an election that is theirs to lose. If the Liberals go into the election with polling high(like they are now), they could easily come out the other side not only with another minority, but a majority.

Tim Hudak is a Mike Harris Jr. want-to-be. If the PCs had a Bill Davis Jr. want-to-be instead, they would be very much better election results in Toronto.

 

[Rainforest]

I find it ridiculous that this process started 5 years ago, when corporate income tax at Prov was at what, 14%?

Now corporate income tax is at 11.5%. Each percent is estimated to bring in approx $1 billion annually.

So.

So corp income tax got a $2.5 billion tax decrease annually, and now it is proposed that we increase taxes/fees on individuals by $2.4 billion annually.

This is a solution in search of a problem I think.

I find most people advocating for the new fees are understandably desperate. But I also find they're so desperate for transit they will swallow anything (including regressive tax policies) without looking into it deeper.

There is a couple of issues here: 1) how would the higher corporate rate affect Ontario's competitive position; 2) all the new transit taxes are proposed for GTA only, whereas the corporate tax rate is same for the whole province. IMO, it is not fair to ask rural Ontarians to pay for transit in GTA that they will hardly ever use.

It is better to treat the two issues separately. Introduce dedicated transit taxes to guarantee some progress in transit expansion. And then, if you feel that the corporate tax rate is too low and that it can be raised without pushing many corporations out of the province, raise that rate and use it to reduce the personal tax rates, increase the HST refunds etc.

 

[Uncle Teddy]

Increase the GST back to 7% and skip everything else. Easy to do, no new work needed and the world was perfectly fine a few years back when it already was 7%.

 

[ReadScout]

There is a couple of issues here: 1) how would the higher corporate rate affect Ontario's competitive position; 2) all the new transit taxes are proposed for GTA only, whereas the corporate tax rate is same for the whole province. IMO, it is not fair to ask rural Ontarians to pay for transit in GTA that they will hardly ever use.

It is better to treat the two issues separately. Introduce dedicated transit taxes to guarantee some progress in transit expansion. And then, if you feel that the corporate tax rate is too low and that it can be raised without pushing many corporations out of the province, raise that rate and use it to reduce the personal tax rates, increase the HST refunds etc.

Our position is about 15 points ahead of our nearest geogrpahic competitor, the United States. We're somewhere around the 26% mark (federal+provincial) and the US is somewhere around the 40% mark. We are actually among the world's lowest tax regimes and that makes us literally compete with third-world countries for low taxes. Click here and click on overall ranking tab, you'll see we compete with the middle east for low taxes. So competitively, we could afford a few points.

Only a few years ago those points were there. So we can understand what the affect might be by looking at what happened since they were shaved off. In a word, nothing. We gave big corporations many tax breaks since the 2008 recession - lowered federal rate to 15% and the aim on prov rate was 10%. It was halted at 11.5 because the prov realized it couldn't afford to go that low. Canada's economy only sputtered for a few quarters though and in early 2009 our economy was already recovering when these tax incentives were implemented. So what did the companies do with the extra money? New jobs? Reinvest? No. They sat and continue to sit on it.

"Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney has taken a rare swing at corporate Canada, accusing companies of sitting on huge piles of “dead money†that should be invested productively or returned to investors."​

-Bank of Canada Governor, Mark Carney - Globe and Mail April 2012

And also according to this, companies just banked the extra money we gave them.

All this while individuals continue to debt fund basic living. These are the same people we are asking to fund huge infrastructure now out of their day-to-day living expenses.

As for the region paying for transit? Sure. But then let us keep all tax dollars that flow out of our region too? Moreover, big business is most concentrate in the GTHA so it would generally be regionally focused.

Also, the point of a province is that we are kept afloat by our collective activity and collective taxation. If we now get to pick and choose who pays for what it is counter to the way we've always done things. The way we've always paid for things and the way we've always built things.

The point is clear. We gave money to big business, they didn't use it. This "transit tools" exercise began during a time when taxing companies more was unthinkable (2008 recession) and now we are living with that irrelevant ghost and looking to tax the average joe when we should be looking at this issue with a more current perspective.

This problem could have been fixed during this year's budget cycle. Add a point a year to corp tax back to 14% and tie that new revenue to a transit pool. That's why i said this is a solution in search of a problem. If Wynne was smart she would have avoided the unnecessary and harmful political debate and just implemented a slow increase to the corp tax regime.