You Fumbled The Ball Comrade Miller

You ran two political campaigns on the premise you could get the provincial and federal governments to underwrite your lack of fiscal control and even though the major portion of your stint as mayor has been with left wing governments in at Queen's Park and Ottawa you have failed miserably.......

Chance to pass penny of GST to cities fumbled, Miller says TheStar.com - News - Chance to pass penny of GST to cities fumbled, Miller says

Ottawa disappoints with failure to `reinvest' part of sales tax in Toronto

October 31, 2007

Jim Byers
City hall bureau chief

The federal Tories have missed a golden opportunity to make a real difference in Canadians' lives by not giving cash-strapped cities a share of the GST, municipal leaders said yesterday.

"I'm disappointed with (Finance) Minister (Jim) Flaherty's decision not to reinvest the federal government's ballooning surplus in cities. After all, the federal government collects nearly all of its money in cities," Toronto Mayor David Miller said in a prepared statement.

Miller, who earlier this year launched a One Cent Now campaign to get a penny of the GST for municipalities, said 80 per cent of Canadians live in cities, which generate most of the country's wealth.

"If Toronto is to succeed, we need the kind of stable and predictable funding that comes with permanent access to revenues that grow with the economy," Miller said. "Without One Cent Now, it becomes increasingly difficult to build the safe, prosperous and inclusive city that Torontonians want; one that is a leader on climate change and that is connected by rapid transit."

Federation of Canadian Municipalities president Gord Steeves, a Winnipeg city councillor, told the Star his city likely will have to cut planned bridge and road repairs as well as rapid transit investment.

"The big cities in Canada really are at a stage where they are entities to themselves," he said. "You can't think of Toronto as simply another city in Ontario. It's an international city and has to be thought of as such, as does Montreal. And the same old funding formulas don't work."

Despite getting the back of Flaherty's hand, Steeves said the One Cent Now campaign, endorsed by the municipal federation and Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, remains alive. "There's talk of a $24 billion surplus in the next five years, and we're hoping they'll be able to find, on top of the GST cuts, some money for infrastructure."

Ottawa has given some transit money and a share of the gas tax but the one-cent campaign is the best long-term solution, he said.

"This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity," Steeves said. "We can make a huge difference, and if we invest we won't see the problems in cities 10 or 15 years from now."