At Least With Mel We Got The Odd Laugh

But there is nothing funny about Emporer Miller and merry band of leftwing nutbars and cottage industry entrepreneurs.

Miller's one-cent solution ...
... is going to cost taxpayers a fortune, as it always does with the mad spenders at City Hall
By SUE-ANN LEVY

Permit me to give my two cents worth about Mayor David Miller's latest effort to acquire one cent of the existing GST.

The idea that His Blondness has chosen to spend $150,000 this cash-strapped city doesn't have on a glossy promotional campaign aimed at exacting $400 million a year from the federal government is beyond cheeky.

It's ridiculous -- punctuated by the fact that Miller chose to announce his PR campaign (called One Cent Now) the day before his executive committee is expected to approve a $1.4-billion capital budget which minimally addresses the city's long list of backlogged infrastructure repairs and raises $350-million in new debt.

I'm beginning to believe the mayor and his fawning followers have lost touch with reality.

There he was yesterday -- at the latest liberal-dominated hot-airfest known as the Toronto City Summit Alliance conference -- declaring to a crowd of more than 500 that it's time for the feds to show "fairness, vision and action" by turning over a one-cent share of the GST action.

Miller contended this GST grab was one of three things cities need most, a message he pledges to take to Ottawa and Queen's Park. Cities also want a national transit strategy and in Ontario, an uploading of social programs back to the province.

"It's NOT a bailout, it's NOT a handout, it's OUR money," he said.

That was in itself an irony given that the money belongs to taxpayers -- and there is only one taxpayer, something the socialists forever forget. I couldn't help but laugh, however, when he committed to handling the $400-million yearly purse "with the utmost of care."

He said the money would be used to keep property taxes "reasonable," meet critical capital budget needs, overhaul the city's affordable housing stock and keep neighbourhoods safe.

Not only that, he'd make Toronto the "greenest of the world's great cities."

My goodness, what was in the mayor's lunch yesterday? And here I thought he was already doing all that.

Miller also contended with a straight face that Toronto's credentials for sound financial management "have grown impressively" in recent years. "At City Hall, we've cut red tape and increased financial controls over public funds," he claimed. "We have our fiscal house in order."

Who wrote this bunk? Perhaps I was away from City Hall the day the mayor decided to make his union buddies more efficient by giving up his stubborn resistance to contracting out. I must have been off as well the day he disbanded his efforts to force small businesses who want to do work with the city to pay "fair" -- that is, union wages -- to their employees.

Guess I also missed the day Miller and city manager Shirley Hoy elected to actually honour council's hiring freeze. Oops, I forgot. Miller is planning to hire four more people in his own office, seeing as he is now the city's CEO.

Toronto's house not in order

It's not as if a mayor, who has openly defied any attempts to get the city's house in order, deserves to get $400 million yearly -- with no strings -- from the feds. He wants to talk about fairness? How about fairness for taxpayers?

As Miller stood before the media answering questions -- with a half dozen Ontario mayors clustered around him -- I realized this campaign is just as much, if not more, about promoting himself for bigger and better things (a future run at becoming premier?) as about solving the city's fiscal woes.

In fact, Sarnia mayor Mike Bradley said he hopes Miller will go out on the "federal campaign trail" to sell his GST efforts. "He has rock star potential as a mayor out there," Bradley said.

Just what Toronto needs. A mayor who thinks he's both an emperor and a rock star.

Noted Coun. Denzil Minnan-Wong: "We're running hundreds of millions of dollars of debt ... I think the mayor should be very careful about how he spends his money ... this sends another bad signal."