Panhandling Professionals At City Hall

City Hall, Queen's Park get earful over budget

Groups present their ideas and demands – from shelter beds to bicycle safety – at budget committee's public hearing
March 30, 2007
Paul Moloney
city hall bureau

Despite a $71 million shortfall and a proposed 3.8 per cent residential property tax hike, community groups want city council to spend more money.

During a day-long public hearing at city hall yesterday, councillors on the budget committee were urged to:

# Reverse a $2 million cut in shelter beds.

# Hire more inspectors to crack down on rodent- and mould-ridden apartment buildings.

# Devote more resources to bicycle safety.

# Ease the property tax burden on business.

Over the next few weeks, the committee will put the finishing touches on the proposed $7.8 billion budget for 2007 before sending it to council for final approval April 20 and 23.

Toronto Board of Trade president Carol Wilding said the city has failed to restrain spending, with only nine of 49 budget envelopes coming in at a zero increase. "The city of Toronto has come out with a transit plan and a green plan. But do we have an up-to-date economic plan and economic strategy? No, we don't," she said.

On the other hand, the city earned praise for its support of school nutrition programs in at-risk neighbourhoods. "Yet another deputation we wish the board of trade had stayed around to hear," said Councillor Shelley Carroll, budget committee chair.

Carroll (Ward 33, Don Valley East) said the message she hears is that city grants to community groups are critical to their work.

Public consultations two years ago, called Listening to Toronto, showed residents don't want deep spending cuts, said affordable housing advocate Michael Shapcott of the Wellesley Institute.

"We're moving in the exact opposite direction," Shapcott said.

The province – which has been slammed for short-changing Toronto on social programs – also came under fire.

Shapcott said he supports the city's call for the province to pony up $71 million, the amount the city maintains it has been short-changed on cost-shared social programs.

Child-care advocate Jane Mercer propped up a cut-out of Premier Dalton McGuinty to buttress her point that a campaign promise to invest $300 million in early learning and child care has yet to be fulfilled.

"We want him to understand that Toronto is about to start losing child-care subsidies and that it is his government that has a responsibility to prevent that," said Mercer, executive co-ordinator of the Toronto Coalition for Better Child Care.