brockm
Active Member
"No it's because Ontarians and Torontonians pay very low income tax, very low service fees, and in Toronto's case low property tax."
Well, this is certainly a matter that's up for debate. And I'm certainly not trying to be pretentious when I qualify myself in this field as I spend a lot of time studying government spending and looking at the research in these areas.
I can tell you that the evidence that the city gets better workers, with better skills, and a stronger commitment to their job than those working at equivalent jobs in the private sector is not very good. Even Scandinavians countries like Sweden have higher levels of private sector service delivery than either the United States or Canada, for this reason. But this issue is orthogonal to tax burden.
Depending on which way you slice it, when you factor in all benefits, city workers make 20-30% more than they would doing the exact same thing in the private sector. If you were simply to pay them, say, 8% more than they would make in the private sector, you could close Toronto's fiscal gab with no tax increases and no service reductions.
If you want to stick to an ideological position that the government should pay more than private sector equivalents, then fine. And if you want to demand that people pay more taxes, then fine. But it's probably not worth us arguing those points since we likely have a disagreement on first principles. I'll only say I think it's unfair for a bureaucrat working at a car insurance company who does the same job as a bureaucrat working at municipal licensing to make less than his public sector counterpart and pay more tax dollars to subsidize his unionized, municipally employed doppleganger.
No, it's nothing more than a fairy tale. You'll have unqualified people that will take them longer to do the job and cost more in training them properly. Do you know why companies like to keep some older experienced staff? Do you have any clue what the cost is of training a brand new employee.
Well, as I said earlier, I've never seen a reputable study in my experience that backs up this position which is broadly associated with progressive economists. Except for non-peer reviewed, non-transparent, so-called studies that come out of organizes such as CUPE, OPSEU and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Which all have a vested interested in taking said position. Having big labour and an economic think tank which is largely funded by big labour that says that paying public sector workers more is good for everybody, is sort of like the tobacco industry funding a study on how healthy cigarettes are.
Well, this is certainly a matter that's up for debate. And I'm certainly not trying to be pretentious when I qualify myself in this field as I spend a lot of time studying government spending and looking at the research in these areas.
I can tell you that the evidence that the city gets better workers, with better skills, and a stronger commitment to their job than those working at equivalent jobs in the private sector is not very good. Even Scandinavians countries like Sweden have higher levels of private sector service delivery than either the United States or Canada, for this reason. But this issue is orthogonal to tax burden.
Depending on which way you slice it, when you factor in all benefits, city workers make 20-30% more than they would doing the exact same thing in the private sector. If you were simply to pay them, say, 8% more than they would make in the private sector, you could close Toronto's fiscal gab with no tax increases and no service reductions.
If you want to stick to an ideological position that the government should pay more than private sector equivalents, then fine. And if you want to demand that people pay more taxes, then fine. But it's probably not worth us arguing those points since we likely have a disagreement on first principles. I'll only say I think it's unfair for a bureaucrat working at a car insurance company who does the same job as a bureaucrat working at municipal licensing to make less than his public sector counterpart and pay more tax dollars to subsidize his unionized, municipally employed doppleganger.
No, it's nothing more than a fairy tale. You'll have unqualified people that will take them longer to do the job and cost more in training them properly. Do you know why companies like to keep some older experienced staff? Do you have any clue what the cost is of training a brand new employee.
Well, as I said earlier, I've never seen a reputable study in my experience that backs up this position which is broadly associated with progressive economists. Except for non-peer reviewed, non-transparent, so-called studies that come out of organizes such as CUPE, OPSEU and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Which all have a vested interested in taking said position. Having big labour and an economic think tank which is largely funded by big labour that says that paying public sector workers more is good for everybody, is sort of like the tobacco industry funding a study on how healthy cigarettes are.
