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TEN NEW TORONTO TAXES

Mayor Miller and a bunch of tools
By SUE-ANN LEVY

Since late February, the King of Denial has been peddling -- ad nauseum -- his $150,000 P.R. effort to acquire one cent of the existing GST.

And it was nearly a month prior to last Sunday's event that the media caught wind of Mayor David Miller's Climate Change forum and open house. To shamelessly promote his forum, Miller appeared in a photo op last Thursday together with a smart car and a garbage truck -- all of which are apparently working towards reducing the city's greenhouse gases. (The smart car is not to be confused with our Harvard-educated mayor, a scholarly economics graduate.)

I figured a similar invitation would be forthcoming earlier this week to promote the consultations for the roster of taxes -- oops, revenue tools -- the king has the power to bring in under the City of Toronto Act.

I even imagined the headline of the press release inviting us to his latest photo op: A mayor, empty city coffers and a bunch of tools (and no I don't mean his leftist lapdogs).

No such luck. It seems consultations on new taxes aren't exactly worthy of photo ops at Miller's open and transparent City Hall. Could it be that he wants to ram them through as quietly and quickly as possible?

It certainly seems that way to Judith Andrew, v-p Ontario for Canadian Federation of Independent Business and Kevin Gaudet, Ontario director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

Andrew said she found out just last week about a "few quick" stakeholder meetings which start today and end next Friday. The city ran its first ad and fuelled up its web site yesterday for a public consultation process that commences in downtown Toronto on Monday night and ends in Scarborough on May 23.

Andrew is worried the taxes will "sneak up on people" and they won't know what they're in for until they get a bill.

"It seems the city is on a fast track and a very quiet track to slip these consulations through and get the taxes squeezed (in) before the summer," she said. "I think they want to do this with as little muss and fuss as possible."

Gaudet had to call and "beg" to be invited to the stakeholder meetings. He feels if the city had spent anywhere near what has been shelled out for the mayor's GST campaign advertising this consultation process, there'd be the "largest tax rally in the history of Toronto."

Reached for more information, director of corporate finance Len Brittain was quite evasive. He did say the report on the eight new taxes will go to executive committee on June 25 but they don't know the "exact form" it will take -- specifically which taxes will be put into place and how quickly.

CFO Joe Pennachetti told me the only new taxes that could be put in place this year would be a new Land Transfer Tax and an extra tax on vehicle registrations.

Whatever they decide, Miller and Co. are sadly mistaken if they think taxpayers will go down without any muss or fuss.

Andrew says her organization won't be "giving up or going away."

Concluding the city won't lay the taxes out in a nice two-pager for all to understand, the CFIB began a "Toronto Taxes -- Not a Penny More!" campaign last week to alert their members to what could be coming at them.

To date they've received responses from "hundreds" of businesses. She wouldn't give away all of their campaign strategies but did say her members are "willing to take political action" when taxes threaten their business.

Starting today, Gaudet will launch a petition on the CTF website (taxpayer.com) called "No New Taxes Toronto" that taxpayers can sign online.

"The Canadian Taxpayers Federation has no intention of rolling over on (up to) 10 new taxes in Toronto," he said, noting city council has a spending problem, not a revenue problem. "I hope taxpayers will be upset as I am at the prospect of the city taxing the fun out of Toronto ... the only thing they're not taxing is breathing."

Not yet, I told Gaudet. But give Miller a chance. I suspect he'll need the money, the way he's going. In fact, I dare him to start with a tax on the hot air emitted by his own cast of minions.