End the ‘tax on kids’

Stung by complaints about a “tax on kids,” Toronto bureaucrats are proposing to give children’s sports leagues a break if they can’t pay the city’s onerous user fees. Sadly, this so-called “relief” utterly misses the point.

But that’s typical of Mayor Rob Ford’s administration. Blindly devoted to penny-pinching, it consistently overlooks the real value of public services while seeing only their cost. Ford’s effort to wring an extra $1.5 million from children and volunteers who use city fields for organized summer sports is a case in point.

In this era of increasing concern over the long-term perils of childhood obesity, public officials should be doing all they can to help kids become more active. Getting youth involved in organized sports is a well-established antidote to the lures of delinquency. And it only makes sense to encourage the adults who run these leagues to continue volunteering their time to maintain — and often improve — the city facilities they use.

So what’s the Ford administration’s response to all this public good? Tax it!

As a result, groups like the East York Baseball Association face a massive increase in their costs. In the association’s case, it amounts to an extra $53,000 this year to use diamonds that volunteers already spend time and considerable money to maintain. New user fees also affect sports like soccer, lacrosse and cricket. When costs are passed on to players, families are looking at paying another $20 to $100 per child, depending on the sport and team.

Welcome to Rob Ford’s Toronto — where your car gets a tax break but your kids get charged for playing healthy and character-building sports.

Next week city council is to consider proposed “relief” for hardpressed teams by allowing them to pay Ford’s tax gradually, rather than all at once. They could also get the option of playing first, and coughing up their money later. How generous. And the user fee could be waived for teams that formally demonstrate they made “reasonable efforts” to raise money covering the tax, but fell short.

One would guess they’re expected to feel grateful. But true “relief” would be to roll back this ill-judged fee and let volunteers and children continue to work and play unimpeded by the city’s short-sighted money-grabbing.