No More Money for Toronto

$40 million to add some trees to Nathan Phillips Square? $2 million for office renovations at city hall. Toronto is supposedly in the midst of a huge financial crisis. There's only $5 million available to fix Toronto's crumbling roads this year. $5 million is enough to fix a couple of large bridges, or a few kilometers of roadway. Half of the budget for the City of Toronto is going to the TTC but there is no money to repair the infrastructure it runs on.
Has Toronto received some kind of magic financial windfall that allows them to do these fancy projects? No. Money is being diverted elsewhere. Such is typical of NDP governments.

To Toronto's mayor David Miller, what is Toronto is basically bordered by Landsdown in the west, Victoria Park in the East, and St Clair in the North. Nothing else of any importance exists beyond those borders, thus it is left to waste in urban decay except for those good citizens who try to keep those areas up. The downtown is where it's at and that seems to be where tax dollars are going.

Much of Toronto's recent problems have been caused by excessive spending. Wonder why the federal and provincial government are reluctant to give cash to Mr Miller, there's your answer. Waste is unfortunately a natural part of government but does it really cost $40 million dollars to put a few trees outside of city hall? Of course not. Does the mayor's office really need renovation? No. So why spend the money on trivial issues when the city is suffering from serious urban decay? Nobody really can answer that. Due to population density, Toronto's downtown councilors outnumber the ones from the city's suburban districts. The downtown councilors are all big NDPers and only downtown issues are heard. Toronto tax payers will have to shell out over $2000 each in the next few years to pay for these ludicrous schemes.

You may be thinking "so what? I don't live in Toronto." In a perfect world, Toronto's problems would be only Toronto's problems. Guess who's fitting the bill? The 905 is the lifeblood that powers Toronto's economic engine in the form of labour and a market from the top corporate CEOs to the bottom blue collar labourers. We run the companies who pay the taxes. However, we're now beginning to be expected to keep Toronto afloat because it can't manage it's money. More and more of our federal and provincial tax dollars are going towards that mess of a city, to be wasted. For the Nathan Phillips Square project, Toronto tax payers are not even footing half the bill, they'll only pay $16 million. Not only are 905ers expected to pay out high taxes for our own cities, but then we have to pay more tax to Toronto. Enough is enough. There should be no additional money for cities unless they can prove it's needed for important things. No more of this general revenue crap that gives them the freedom to spend it on whatever they wish. Toronto does not need "greening" of its "gathering places" or additional office space for lazy civil servants at the suburbs' expense. If money is given to Toronto, it should only go to four key areas: transportation, infrastructure, public health, and policing. Nothing else. If Toronto wants to do other things, then it should have to foot 100% of the bill. If they can't afford it, then TS.