Miller's out of luck: Feds
T.O. won't get share of GST
By KATHLEEN HARRIS AND ANTONELLA ARTUSO
OTTAWA -- Toronto Mayor David Miller must rein in runaway city spending instead of going cap in hand to other levels of government, federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty fumed yesterday.
Calling Miller's call for a cut of the GST a "non-starter," Flaherty warned Toronto's new council it must take a hard, fresh look at managing its budget.
'PERSISTENT'
Flaherty said other big cities have made past requests for a share of the gas tax, but Toronto is the only one to harp on with "persistent" pleas for more federal cash "day after day."
Toronto will reap $48.9 million from the gas tax in 2007 and will get the "lion's share" of a $351.5-million pot for urban transit in Ontario, he said.
Miller wasted no time after his re-election Monday calling on the federal and provincial governments to donate 1 cent of the sales tax collected in Toronto to the city's coffers -- about $450 million a year.
Yesterday, Premier Dalton McGuinty said cash-strapped municipalities need to look to Stephen Harper's government for more financial help because Queen's Park is tapped out.
"I'd love to be in a position to be able to dole out additional revenues to all the municipal partners, but I'm not," McGuinty said. "There is one particular government that recently recorded a $13.5-billion surplus.
"That's not ours."
Conservative Leader John Tory said McGuinty was highly critical of the previous government's downloading exercise and talked of new deals for cities prior to the last election.
"This man refuses to accept his responsibilities," Tory said.
"I have -- I have indicated that the regime that was put in place by our party is not working today."
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