FOUR KEY ISSUES
Transit What a ride we’ve been on these past three years. To recap: We cancelled the Scarborough LRT plan, reinstated it, then decided to go with a subway extension instead. The details are still being sorted, and the plan itself, after all this time, remains somewhat up in the air. Meanwhile, the Sheppard LRT has now been delayed by years. The good news is that we’ve all had a chance to study the issue and form more intelligent opinions on transit building. The bad news is that we’ve neglected to address service on the system we have. Transit has been cut and frozen in Ford budgets, and fares have risen while buses have been scheduled to come less frequently and to be more crowded.
Taxes Where to begin? There is a massive repair backlog in public housing and a wait list for apartments approaching 90,000 households; hundreds of millions have been diverted to emergency repairs on the Gardiner Expressway and investment in flood prevention has slowed down. Ford has kept property-tax increases low (below the rate of inflation; meanwhile, Toronto has the lowest property taxes in the region) and cancelled the vehicle registration tax. In an outbreak of sanity, council has not yet eliminated the Land Transfer Tax, which brings in $300 million per year. Still, a realistic plan to fund the city’s long list of pressing needs is a splash of cold water we haven’t received yet.
The gravy train When the mayor ran on a platform of cutting waste and inefficiency, a lot of reasonable people suspected he was on to something. Four budgets later, city manager Joe Pennachetti estimates the actual “savings” to the city by cutting inefficiency at about $400 million — a little less than former mayor David Miller saved in his final four-year term. Here’s a hard truth for the electorate to face up to: There is no secret pile of money, nor an overlooked train full of gravy, that will solve our financial difficulties.
Affordable housing Ford very noisily makes public housing a priority by visiting residents and then sharing their concerns about roaches and broken-down buildings. Yet he’s done nearly nothing of actual substance to improve the situation. At the same time, even as condo construction continues at skyline-warping speed, housing overall has become less affordable — for those rich, poor or otherwise — in the past three years. Rents are up by more than double the rate of inflation, and average house prices have increased by 25 per cent. This issue, one of the most discussed in the city, cries out for immediate action.