Have Torontonians Gone Insane or Is It The Water We Are Drinking?

April 9, 2010 - PRLog -- Seems these days all politicians, including the grand old lady Hazel McCallion, have only new revenues on their mind and NO ideas or suggestions about curtailing their chronic spending habits for services Renters, Condo, Homeowners and Businesses never asked for or voted for in the first place!

I readily agree with Hazel that nothing is free, but Toronto has been providing services far below their actual costs and duplicating services already offered by other levels of government.

They have been increasing taxes at twice the annual rate of inflation since 2003!

Torontonians along with their fellow GTA residents combined with the rest of Ontario’s population ALREADY have to pay a gas tax of 14.7 cents per liter at the pumps, plus a further federal gas tax of 30.1 cents per liter.

All these taxes were implemented for the provincial transportation systems so where has the money been spent and why not some of this for the TTC?

Now proposing road tolls an indirect tax and toll road tolls system would NOT bring Toronto or Mississauga closer to other would-be world-class cities. It would cost employees $200. per month from their salaries or $2,600 per year! However it would most likely encourage urban sprawl. Out of the ten top world class cities in the world NONE have an internal road toll system.

We do not need new sources of revenue folks, it’s a fool’s game and just prolongs the day of bankruptcy because of our politician’s failure to reduce spending and live within revenues currently collected through the overburdened property tax system.

Now you want to consider giving these proven fiscally irresponsible incumbent councilors of the past 13 years more revenues so they can continue such outrageous spending for left leaning ideologies of their respective political parties, special interest groups and lobbyists?

Why do we continue to pay 100% of the costs for our Toronto’s employee’s benefits when our top bureaucrats tell us we have a financial problem?

I am sure we had this financial problem during the 2009 and 2002 union contract negotiations!

Employee benefits as a condition for continuing employment should be on a 75% to 25% basis as a start in getting our fiscal problems in order. Especially when we consider that over 50% of Toronto’s expenditures go for paying salaries and benefits!

Why did our incumbent councilors agree to a wage increase of 1.75% and back dated for salaries in 2008 when the actual cost of inflation was only .2989%. Thus giving employees a 1.45% increase above the rate of inflation?

This rate increase also applied to shift bonuses each year and for the registered nurses in charge.

The logic used to give employees an additional paid holiday, Family Day, was based on the argument that the provincial employment standards act already requires this holiday for recreation workers?

Since this is a mandated requirement from the province these costs should be reimbursed at 100% to the city along with all other mandated programs or services by the province to the city.

Time for a new council with new councillors to start uploading costs back to the province or take the province to court for the reimbursement of costs for their mandated programs.

Another irresponsible fiscal agreement agreed to with the union was to increase wage protection for workers.

With our city’s financial problems incumbent councilors voted to increased to this benefit by 40%. Allowing for a 35 months benefit period from the previous 25 months and based on the argument this would avoid claims of age discrimination/human rights issues.

Again human rights issues are mandated by the province so they should have to pay the cost for such at 100% not on the backs of property or business taxes, which also further increases the cost of renting.

http://torontopolitics2010.blogspot.com/

TORONTO is OUR CITY, YOUR VOTE, OUR FUTURE TOGETHER. So VOTE, Do It on October 25, 2010, You Will Like It.

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CLARKE an INDEPENDENT NOT a CAREER Politician or supporter of any political party, special interest group or lobbyists. PETER is your average citizen candidate and answerable only to the people NOT a political party, special interest group or lobbyist