Chow’s massive Toronto tax hike passes, police and snow clearing saved

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Olivia Chow’s 9.5% property tax hike sailed through at Toronto City Hall on Wednesday evening with a vote of 18-8.

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At the same time, council was able to amend Chow’s budget to restore key snow clearing operations and give city police the $12.7 million that the mayor’s budget had stripped from them.

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This tax increase, the largest in the city’s history, comes on top of last year’s 7% tax hike, meaning that in two years, property taxes have gone up by 17.1% on a compounded basis. That means that for a home with a property tax bill of $5,000 in 2022, they will now be paying $5,850.

For Chow, though, this budget is a step in the right direction.

“This budget invests in what matters. We’re standing up for renters and building more housing. We’re getting the TTC moving again. We’re charting a path to a more caring, affordable and safe city,” Chow said in a statement after the vote.

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Over the course of the nine-hour meeting, councillors made many proposals to amend Chow’s budget.

Councillor Jon Burnside proposed that the TTC undertake a fare increase and recoup money lost through fare evasion, as recommended by the city auditor. The fare increase was voted down 16-10, while the calls for finding savings and ending fare evasion carried 21-5.

It’s hard to believe that any councillor would vote against ending fare evasion, but Alejandra Bravo, Mike Colle, Paula Fletcher, Ausma Malik and Gord Perks all did. If we all started to “evade” our property taxes, I doubt these councillors would vote against a motion to start collecting.

Councillor Brad Bradford made an attempt to cut small businesses some slack with a motion that called for a reduced small business property tax rate, but that idea was rejected 22-4.

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The biggest item to pass in terms of amendments to Chow’s budget was restoring the $12.7 million stripped from the budget passed by the police services board. That motion passed 21-5 with Chow voting to restore funding while Bravo, Fletcher, Malik, Josh Matlow and Perks voted against it.

The push to keep the windrow snow-clearing operations in suburban areas passed 24-2 with just Perks and Dianne Saxe voting against it.

The reality is that what councillors spent most of the day debating were the small crumbs on the budget table, not tackling ever-growing spending at City Hall. The budget that passed Wednesday comes with a whopping $17-billion price tag, that’s a 26% spending increase over the last five years, well above the rate of inflation.

Despite this, the councillors standing up and speaking in favour of Chow’s budget spoke of the need to end austerity and start spending again. They portrayed the last several years as being one of cuts rather than investments in core services.

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That’s a frightening thought because we’ve increased spending by billions and basic services are worse than most of us have ever seen.

What council really needs to do — but so far refuses — is to conduct a core services review that looks at what every program costs, whether it is delivering or even needed. That exercise last happened more than a decade ago under then-mayor Rob Ford.

Until that happens, we can expect ever-growing spending and regular tax hikes like this.

During the byelection that put Chow in the top spot at City Hall, her opponents warned of massive tax increases based on her plans, while Chow promised just a moderate increase. It’s tough to claim that a 9.5% increase is moderate, especially on top of last year’s hike.

Chow gets to look like a bridge builder, though, because of joining in to vote for items she had proposed cutting. She looks less radical because the tax hike is smaller than the 16.5% tax hike that was threatened in January.

How this increase will be seen, though, won’t really be known until bills arrive in mailboxes and residents see how badly they are getting hit.

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