From Cork to Toronto

Toronto's assumption of a land transfer tax places the city's financing doubly dependent on the peaks and valleys of the property market. The take looks attractive given the strength of a booming market in the City at present. It looked attractive in Cape Coral, Florida too : (The Mayor) was keen to build a new high school. He hoped to widen roads and extend the reach of the sewage system, limiting pollution from leaky septic tanks. He wanted to add parks. But then the US property crash happened, and property revenues crashed with it. What's it like in Cape Coral now? Last month, the city eliminated 18 building inspector jobs and 20 other positions within its Department of Community Development. They were no longer needed because construction has all but ceased. The city recently hired a landscaping company to cut overgrown lawns surrounding hundreds of abandoned homes. “People are underwater on their houses, and they have just left,” Mr. Feichthaler says. “That road wid...

When the OHIP "Premium" was introduced with a name designed to spin the impact of an extra tax, many people noted that unions with collective agreements retaining a provision to pay the old OHIP Premium would make claims. The Liberals said "we don't think that will happen" but declined to outlaw the possibility. Now TTC (among others) is paying the OHIP Tax on behalf of their unionised staff, at a cost of $6 million annually to the Commission (that's over two million TTC tokens, Dalton). Before the last election, the Liberals promised an extra holiday - Family Day - in February, which will cost Toronto taxpayers $2.3 million but some private sector workers are finding out that they will lose a non-statutory holiday in August in return . Typically, the Labour Minister's response is a shrug - "no big deal". "I think it's a terrific initiative and 83 per cent of Ontarians agree it's something this province should be doing," ...

I am grateful to Bob Tarantino for directing me to John Lorinc's feature, " Deadly Lesson " in this month's Toronto Life. It points out the central problem with some Toronto schools - that political considerations have led to some of Toronto's schools being largely uncontrolled and that students with serious behavioural problems are being left in those environments with foreseeable consequences to their peers. Shuffling problems from place to place didn't work for paedophile priests and it doesn't work for disturbed and criminal teenagers either. To be in control of a school you must know who is on the premises and be able to quickly eject interlopers. It's not enough to have conduct standards - they have to be taken seriously, enforced and action taken when they are breached. I can't help but think that the "progressive educators" who refuse to admit that leadership and security are the cornerstones of winning back our troubled camp...

One of the reasons I have been sceptical about the land transfer tax (or "moving tax" ) is that it's hard to budget revenues for a sector that is prone to booms - and serious busts. David Miller should heed the following warning, based on the latest reports from the Irish Department of Finance who call LTT "stamp duty": "The bottom line is that this will be the most difficult budget Brian Cowen has had to preside over," said Alan McQuaid in Bloxham Stockbrokers. The problem is slumping revenues from the reduction in house building and stalled house sales. Stamp duties brought in €400m less than expected and taxes on profits from property sales are more than €100m below estimates. It makes one wonder how much of the current Ontario surplus is built on the Toronto property boom and the land transfer tax take that went with it, and what happens if that boom levels off, or worse still slows down.

David Shiner , a Toronto city councillor and former budget chief, is the Conservative candidate for the Provincial seat in Willowdale, a closely contested match-up with incumbent Liberal David Zimmer. Some members of council and the Mayor's man-in-the-hallway and deputy communications director Stuart Green have called for Shiner to either resign or take unpaid leave on the grounds that while campaigning he is not representing his constituents and that Olivia Chow and Sylvia Watson did likewise when they ran. Now if Shiner stood aside unpaid, his constituents aren't represented for the term of the campaign, and if he resigns neither a by-election or an infill process would be completed by election day so once again, his constituents go unrepresented. So basically Willowdale has inferior representation whichever way you slice it, and he does seem to be still dealing with some city business ( any that gets him media coverage anyway ). Then there's the issue of drawing sala...

I'm rarely a fan of John Barber but every so often he hits the mark - today he turns his fire on the City of Toronto's multiplying in number and decreasing in effectiveness "integrocrats". As for David Mullan, the new integrity commissioner Mr. Miller promised, he can talk for 45 minutes before revealing his actual position on the trivia brought before him by squabbling politicians. Through no fault of his own, what was supposed to be a pioneering office with broad responsibilities has become irrelevant. But quiet. [snip] Torontonians paid millions of dollars for a judge to tell them the city needed strict new controls on lobbyists to re-establish the legitimacy of local democracy. But David Miller, mayor at the time, was already on record promising that. Several years and an election later, there is still no lobbyist registry - and the one that council approved but chose not to implement is so riddled with exemptions and carve-outs as to be incomprehensible.

The Globe and Mail mentioned this hacked together website cooked up by the aforementioned rightwing councillors - it's like a mix of " How'd they vote " melded with Conservapedia . Even though I agree with how they voted on the land transfer tax deferral, believing as I do that taxes should not be levied merely on the basis of a budget hole and a taxing power but on the basis that the tax seems fair to those it is imposed on, I would prefer they had removed the "issues" boxes, at least in so far as they referred to councillors who voted the other way - it seems like putting words in their mouthes. I would be surprised if a few websavvy types on the mayor's side of the fence, the kind of people who produce professional looking sites such as Spacing , didn't take a crack at representing the alternative view - Minnan-Wong and Stintz mightn't find that so funny.

One of the more minor irritants of life in Toronto is the uniform nature of street vendor food which basically consists of various kinds of fried sausage. For a long time, Councillor John Filion has been pushing the idea of expanding this. All of a sudden Ontario Health Minister George Smitherman , in whose power it is to amend the necessary regulations (once again, the City of Toronto Act keeps us crawling to Queen's Park) decided to announce a relaxation at the Taste of Lawrence event but didn't invite the guy who had done the spadework to share the limelight. In a rare move by a pol, Filion turned the other cheek and welcomed the relaxation regardless - what's odd is that apparently Filion normally identifies as Liberal . However, he appears to have been worried that the province are trying to relax the regulations before the City has hired the inspectors to police them and that the choice will merely expand as far as burgers as well as hot dogs. His moves to ensur...

Apparently TTC are making big changes to Broadview and Kennedy stations this week. But hey, why bother telling anyone on the Service Disruption page (which seems to be down anyway), even if it means people who didn't bother getting transfers to Kennedy now need one. Apparently the powers that be don't even tell the drivers. Can we please hire whoever does passenger information at GO Transit? At least they seem to be trying . Meanwhile months after Adam Giambrone solicited ideas for the TTC website, no progress to report.

In Phoenix, Arizona two helicopters operated on behalf of KNXV and KTVK following a police pursuit collided killing all four crew . In Toronto, Global, Rogers and CTV all operate news aircraft. The Toronto Police wanted a helicopter for years under Fantino's regime, which may have cut down the number of fatalities occurring during these same pursuits and assisted control of large events, but while moaners, er... "concerned citizens" refused to countenance it citing noise and cost, the media organisations have expanded their fleets without much notice being taken. At the moment, the TPS seem to be able to get by for their own needs by borrowing York Region's helicopter, but to my mind it's time they had a hotline to Toronto Air Traffic Control with the power to close airspace to visual traffic such as private aircraft rather than having tellychoppers hanging overhead a crime scene causing a racket while officers are trying to deal with incidents for nuisance valu...

I was out of town over the weekend and while I had heard of the violent incident between Toronto Police and Chilean Under 20 soccer players and the subsequent diplomatic kerfuffle, I expected an investigation to closely query what happened to put our city's international reputation in the spotlight (drawing far more overseas media coverage than the tournament was getting I suspect) and the decision making of the police officers on the scene - this is not the first allegation of police overreaction at BMO Field. However, on the way back into town, 680 News brought us their top story - a bunch of whiners protesting outside the 3rd place playoff game. Heads up boys and girls - Sepp Blatter refused to link this to any future Canadian bid for a FIFA tournament and if FIFA won't pick Chile over Canada we can't have been that far offside. But the infuriating bit was when protesters linked the incident with the policies of Augusto Pinochet : "For many people, even for m...

A wrongheaded stance , in my view, but their right to be wrong, etc. What got my goat though was the reference to the property market last month: The Toronto Real Estate Board is opposed to the tax, but it recently reported that June's sales volume was the highest ever for that month, with the average property selling for 5 per cent more this year compared to the first six months of 2006. Well, yeah - it would when the tax hasn't come in yet, and I fully expect sales to be as brisk if not more so between here and the year's end - as long as closing dates precede 31.12.2007. A surge in consumption usually precedes the onset of a tax, and a decline in advance of a reduction. Don't try and book a moving truck this Christmas. Toronto is providing at insufficient compensation things that are not its proper responsibility such as social welfare and does not have access to taxes directly linked to growth it creates. A Toronto success is really a federal and provincial succ...

I wonder how much Krusty the Clown (no, not that clown , I mean this one) got for those... anyway, today I heartily endorse nohomebuyingtax.com - the Toronto Real Estate Board's website against Toronto's new and throughly regressive tax grab. Transferring land from one owner to another doesn't cost the city any extra facilities. Building new houses does, which is why development charges are fair. Ironically, one of the few exemptions for first time buyers is purchase new homes - which do add to the strain on city infrastructure. However, only the first $2,000 is exempt on new homes and the tax on an average priced house is about $3,890. If you bought a condo box a few years ago and need more room to start a family, well you better look for a crib that can hang off a balcony railing like a planter or something. I had meant to write about Mike Smith's " if you believe in property ownership you deserve to have the government take your money away and spend it fo...

Philip Preville's blog post pointed me to his article in Toronto Life which is in part a brief history of the recent contentious development/gentrification on West Queen West/Queen West West - including a mention of the Zeidlers which reminded me of having recently watched " Last Call at the Gladstone Hotel ". The blog post expands on the article, including that the most recent City Planning and Growth Management Committee was inquorate with only three members showing up for a presentation by a visiting British guest speaker. I recommend Preville's pieces to those who are following the Miller regime's stewardship of development in Toronto. Some of the information would have been familiar to those who follow Christopher Hume's columns but this piece brought together a number of interesting strands. Preville notes that the last time a Chief Planner went before the board, Paul Bedford spent a week successfully stopping a waterfront Home Depot. That was nine...

There are certain similarities between the civilian emergency services and the military, not least that they tend to be as much vocations as jobs, rarely overpaid or undertasked and in our heart of hearts those of us who aren't members of either find it hard to see what the attraction is, at least to the point of signing up for a contract. It's not altogether surprising then that members of Toronto's Fire and Emergency Medical Services organised the placing of "support the troops" decals on their vehicles. That the Canadian Forces are involved in a harder task than at any time since Korea is surely undebatable. Yet there is a cohort of people in Toronto and Canada generally that oppose the war - fair enough - but target the Forces in doing so. The Forces, as I have noted previously, are politically directed. It is in my opinion perfectly logically coherent to wear a yellow ribbon while holding a sign calling for an end to the Afghan deployment - although those...

A good week for Porter, a bad one for Air Canada. Its Jazz subsidiary was denied summary judgement in their attempt to regain access to Toronto City Centre and must issue a formal statement of claim within 30 days and submit to discovery processes (which would disclose Jazz' strategy towards the Island Airport). Failure to do so would mean they would be exposed to costs - Porter claim to have spend $1m so far. This was followed by the US Department of Transportation decision to allow Porter to operate to the US . This was opposed by Air Canada and some US airlines but DOT decided that what the Port Authority did to Air Canada was not their concern, and all that mattered was their relationship with American carriers - noting that TPA came to an agreement with US Airways, irrespective that US did not take up the service. Porter is expected to begin service to Newark in Q4 2007 or Q1 2008 but are expected to serve other US destinations. CEO Robert Deluce had recently announced p...

Here's the CBC on it . Now if they could only find a way of showing... oh let's pick something random... why the subway is running slow and hundreds of people are stuck on hot platforms from Queen to Wellesley.

According to Steve Munro's informative post , this TTC Commission Report thinks so, with the majority being incurred by the section in York Region and yet Toronto is on the hook for all of the shortfall. This subway extension above York U is looking like a worse deal every day.

During his recent trip to Canada, the Governator met with Stephen Harper (the Kyotoevader), Dalton McGuinty, who broke his pledge to close coal-fired power in Ontario, and Gordon Campbell, whose province is planning new coal plants despite objections from his neighbours in the state of Washington. Yet while in Toronto he did not meet with our Mayor , David Miller, the greenest broom wielder in Canada. I for one would love to know why. Could it be that word has got around about Hizzoner's deserted presentation in New York , in contrast to Ken Livingstone 's packed house? While Schwarzenegger promotes his Hydrogen Highway, Miller is promoting the idea of plug-in cars , which is a curious idea from a Mayor who believes we don't need new power plants or power lines. Even restricting use to off peak will require specialised infrastructure to ensure people don't plug in their cars in day time because they really really really need to make that trip to Walmart. Like the h...

Illegalsigns.ca is an excellent new advocacy site which I spotted on a Spacing post . It chronicles the presence of illegal commercial signs - usually "third party", not directly associated with the business it is erected on. The signs can be overlarge, obscuring windows, too close to another large sign and so on. Crucially it points out how some companies re-erect such signs after being told to remove them by Toronto Municipal Licencing and Standards (MLS). The activists have obtained copies of the inspector work records and chronicle the failings of the advertises and those meant to regulate them. I think there are some horrific signs in Toronto, especially the rooftop signs erected on unsightly steel gantries. The numbers of signs already identified as illegal ( Google mashup ) is pretty eye watering, especially near City Hall . Unlike the harder-line members of groups like the Toronto Public Space Committee , I am not against commercial advertising per se, especial...