Toronto residents will soon see first-hand the effects of the city's budget crisis. Community centres will be closed on Mondays, library hours cut and fewer potholes fixed as the city tries to reduce a $575 million shortfall in its 2008 budget. But even with these cuts, which will reap $34 million in savings this year and $83 million next year, Toronto still faces a financial crunch it cannot solve on its own.
Provincial downloading, imposed by the previous Conservative government in the 1990s, lies at the root of Toronto's woes. And until Queen's Park takes back some of these costs, which are eating up about $730 million from the city's property tax revenue this year alone, Toronto has no real hope of regaining its financial footing.
So it is welcome news that Premier Dalton McGuinty is setting out a concrete plan to deal with this issue ahead of the Oct. 10 election.
McGuinty announced yesterday that Queen's Park will upload the full cost of a disability support program and drug benefit program for social assistance recipients from cities and towns over the next four years, for savings of about $935 million across the province. Toronto alone would save $217 million over that period, including $38 million next year, according to the government.
Following NDP Leader Howard Hampton's pledge last week to ease the downloading burden on municipalities, McGuinty's announcement is a clear sign that provincial politicians realize that they can no longer ignore the financial crisis gripping not just Toronto, but cities across the province. While much still remains to be done to shore up cities unfairly burdened by provincially mandated programs, fully funding these two programs is a good place to start, although it should be phased in much more quickly than McGuinty is proposing.
Cities and towns have no hand in running or delivering the disability support program. They just write the province a cheque. Relieving Ontario cities of this burden should present few bureaucratic hurdles. And with the province already running $400 million ahead of revenue projections this fiscal year, there is no excuse not to start uploading, even without waiting for the results of a high-level review of provincial downloading due early next spring.
For his part, Conservative Leader John Tory, who acknowledges there is a problem, prefers to wait for the results of the review before outlining his plan to reverse downloading, although he says he would ask for the report by the end of this year.
Waiting even that long would be short-sighted. While the province basks in surpluses, Toronto residents face cuts to city services that will only worsen unless the provincial government acts decisively.
True, Toronto city council could do more. Last month, councillors voted narrowly to put off until Oct. 22 a decision on two new taxes that would have pumped $356 million into city coffers next year.
But reversing the unfair provincial downloading would go a long way to digging Toronto out of its financial hole. With the city already reeling, there can be no excuse from Queen's Park politicians for delay.
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