Comrade Miller is constantly using the excuse that he has to provide certain services because they are mandated by other levels of government but those levels are not providing adequate funding. Solution: Don't provide the service and get the recipients to march on Queens Park.
Mayor gears down
Toronto's diverse set of industries may save city from severe recession, Miller speculates
Toronto is in for a bumpy ride next year but there's still time to avoid a hard landing, Mayor David Miller says.
In a year-end interview with Sun Media, Miller said his council has used every economic gear at hand -- a development fee freeze, a $1.6 billion building budget, tax breaks for "transformative" projects -- to avoid falling into deep recession.
The federal government now needs to stop wrapping funding for major public transit projects in red tape that can't be untied, he said.
Governments can't afford to let the auto sector come to a halt, either.
"If we don't find a way to preserve those jobs -- the jobs in the bank towers, the jobs in retail, the jobs everywhere else are all directly at risk," Miller said. "It is of that magnitude.
"We've got 20,000 to 22,000 jobs directly in auto parts in Toronto, and you take all the spinoffs, and you take all of that money out of the economy around here, and nobody will be safe. It is enormous. And I think many people don't appreciate the scale of it."
Miller said the "one thing that makes me nervous" is the federal Conservatives' reluctance to invest directly in auto companies, although they made an exception prior to the last election in a riding they wished to win.
"So let's hope they see the light," he said.
Federal Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff should make his support of a Stephen Harper budget in January contingent on national infrastructure and transit programs, he said.
"He has Harper where he wants him and he has the NDP and the Bloc supporting him," Miller said.
"Or he can choose to let Mr. Harper come in with half measures or less -- that's going to be his choice. And what fascinates me about politics is -- he just got there and this is going to define him."
Miller said he may have studied economics, but he's never lived through anything this dramatic, where every week has brought astounding new financial news.
There are many bright spots -- TTC ridership is up which means people are working; and the city has four million square feet of commercial construction underway, he said.
If the senior levels of government come through with funding for Transit City, a light rail system for Toronto, then many more jobs will be created, he said.
The mayor said his government has tried to prepare for the potential human cost of a recession by investing in public services that people depend on even more during difficult times.
"I'm hoping because Toronto has a very diverse set of industries that we see a recession rather than an extremely severe recession as the uncertainty develops," he said. "That impact will really be felt by families in Toronto, so it's incumbent upon us to do what we can to help.
"We're not quite through our financial challenges -- we're almost there -- we need a little bit more time for more of the uploading (of social cost programs by the province) to take hold," he said.
Looming in the coming operating budget is a property tax increase of 2% to 4%.
Miller said the increase is mostly policing costs, that Toronto plans to tell an arbitrator looking at officer compensation that it can't afford a large increase but the final decision is out of the city's hands.
There's also little in reserve should the welfare costs suddenly take off, but the mayor said he's mindful of the 14% tax hike required by a previous council when social assistance numbers exploded.
He doesn't want to go there.
Miller's critics have long criticized his spending habits and argued he never saw a union job he didn't like.
His opponents tried unsuccessfully to cut out of last week's capital budget the expenses that they saw as unnecessary -- like the renovation of city hall wedding chapels, the environmental assessment on the demolition of a section of the Gardiner Expressway and the ambitious bike lane project.
Advocates of a zero per cent property-tax hike say the only thing missing at city hall is the will to say no to special interest groups that come looking for tax dollars.
Miller points out the city is mandated by provincial law to provide important but costly services like policing, homes for the aged and social services.
In many of those programs, the province also tells the city how many people they have to hire.
Once upon a time before downloading, the province paid 50% of the operating funding and 75% of the capital budget for the TTC; picked up the lion's share of social housing and social assistance costs.
Miller said the current provincial government has gone some way to lift the burden but not as far or fast as it needs to go.
It leaves the city with little wiggle room to find significant savings, he argued.
"If we had to lay off people, we have to lay off people -- I would hope to do everything in my power to avoid that," Miller said.
PARKS AND LIBRARIES
"You're not going to let firefighters go. You're not going to let ambulance paramedics go. You can't let social service workers or homes for the aged or shelters (go) ... you know what's left? The stuff that's directly under our control is a tiny fraction of our budget and is basically things like recreation, parks and libraries. Although at first blush people say you've got to cut back, it's not a sensible response for the city to lay off people who work for libraries and close libraries in a recession.
"We need to make those services more available for people, particularly if people are struggling ... the parks become even more important. People need those avenues."
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