David Miller, Dalton McGuinty, Jim Flaherty

David Miller: I won’t take no for an answer
Dalton McGuinty: No

By Arthur Weinreb

Thursday, November 16, 2006

And federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty wasn’t far behind with a negative response.

At his post-election victory party, Toronto’s re-elected mayor wasted no time in demanding money from both the provincial and federal levels of government. Miller demanded that the city receive one cent of the Provincial Sales Tax or the Goods and Services Tax that is collected on taxable items and services within the city of Toronto.

It didn’t take long for Dalton McGuinty to say no although the Ontario premier thought, surprise, surprise, that the federal government should give the city more cash and he offered his support in putting the squeeze on the feds.

Soon after McGuinty’s comments on the matter, Jim Flaherty took the same position that the Conservatives have taken since coming into power at the beginning of the year. The financially prudent Flaherty wants Miller and the city of Toronto to get its own spending under control before he will discuss further funding from the federal government. This is completely contrary to Mayor Miller’s position that the federal government should not go through with the promised further one per cent reduction of the GST and simply hand over more cash to the city with no strings attached.

The reality is that no matter what happens between the three levels of government, those who live, work or otherwise spend money in the city of Toronto are ultimately going to pay more in taxes. We will undoubtedly see in the not too distant future, a clear cut example of the fact that often ignored; no matter how many levels of government there are, there is only one taxpayer.

A rumour has already been floated that while the GST will be cut a further one per cent, the provinces will be encouraged to increase their PST’s by the same amount; possibly doing it by harmonizing both the provincial and federal sales taxes. This would be looked at by the Harper government as a transfer of monies from the federal government to the provinces. If a harmonized tax is brought in, Ontarians will be end up paying more tax on items such as books and services that while subject to the GST are exempt from the PST. In any event, McGuinty has made it clear that he is not interested in raising the PST. But this may change after next October’s election if McGuinty is reelected and after the sound bite of Dalton saying “you won’t pay one penny more in taxes” is finished playing for another season (we can count on the PCs and the New Democrats playing that clip over and over again during next year’s campaign). If McGuinty is re-elected he may increase taxes and pay a portion to the city, but it definitely wont’ happen before then.

And Flaherty, one of the most fiscally conservative politicians in Canada, isn’t likely to ever give money to the city until they at least attempt to control their spending; something that is extremely unlikely to happen, especially since Miller and his free-spending socialist cronies on council have received such a clear mandate from the voters.

The sad reality in all this is that the city does deserve more support from the two levels of government. Downloading by the previous provincial government has hurt Toronto but as long as there are logos to redesign and names of Crown corporations to drop letters from, Dalton McGuinty will be in no hurry to upload costs from the city to the province. And federal governments in other countries that have mass transit systems pay at least a portion of the cost; something that both the Liberals and the Conservatives have always balked at.

With the coming into force of the City of Toronto Act, Miller now has new taxing powers that he says he has no intention of using. But what we are likely to see in the future are Miller’s constant demands for more money being rebuffed until he finally concedes defeat and reluctantly, with tears in his eyes, imposes new taxes on the residents and businesses of Toronto.

Nothing is certain but death and taxes. And in Toronto, we can add tax increases to the mix.

Arthur Weinreb is an author, columnist and Associate Editor of Toronto Free Press. His work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Men's News Daily, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck and The Rant. Arthur can be reached at: Columns 2006 '05 '04 '03 '02 '01 '00 1999 Media 2006 '05 '04 '03 '02 Toronto 2006 '05 '04