City council spent most of Tuesday afternoon questioning city staff about their recommendations on new taxes aimed to fund public transit.
The revenue tools are being proposed as a way to help pay for a $50-billion transit expansion plan for the Greater Toronto Area dubbed the “Big Move.”
City councillors are expected to provide feedback to Queen's Park, but first are considering a report put together by city staff on their recommendations.
The staff report, tabled last month, urges council to immediately voice its support for four of the proposed tools, including development charges and a dedicated sales tax, fuel tax and parking space levy.
The report said that city staff would also support three of the other proposed tools - high occupancy toll lanes, highway tolls and a dedicated vehicle registration tax - upon completion of the first phase of the project.
The staff report dismissed a congestion levy, a transit fare increase, a utility bill levy and an employer payroll tax or an income tax as a means to fund transit.
The debate, which began before lunch, was expected to continue well into the evening.
“There are different points of view. I know the mayor thinks we can pay for transit with money that grows on trees or something, but most adults in Toronto understand that if we want to build a bigger transit system we are going to have to collect more taxes,” Coun. Gord Perks told CP24 Wednesday morning. “I favour progressive taxes like income tax and corporate tax, so the wealthy pay more than your regular working guy while other people want to put tax on cars through gasoline and parking taxes. We will see how it goes.”
While Toronto Mayor Rob Ford stepped out of the debate at around 2:30 p.m. his brother, Coun. Doug Ford spoke out on the issue, saying councillors need to be careful about supporting any new taxes.
"We are debating whether we should go hand over a blank cheque to an irresponsible government that has cost us billions of dollars through boondoggle after boondoggle," Coun. Doug Ford told CP24 on Wednesday. "They’ll flush it down the toilet."
While some councillors said they were glad their input was being considered, others said they would rather the province take on full responsibility for transit funding.
Coun. Maria Augimeri said she resented the fact that the municipality has to carry the burden of having a conversation about new taxes and that the province is shifting that burden in order to get "the albatross off its back."
"I really don't think we should be having a discussion on revenue tools at all frankly," she said. "I think the province should go back to the 2008 levels of taxing large corporations so that way, we'd have $2.5 billion more a year and with that $2.5 billion we could fund a lot of transit.
"The province should really be a leader in this," she continued. "What kind of leadership is this, pushing it onto the municipality?"
Mayor Rob Ford’s executive committee had originally scheduled the debate on 11 proposed revenue tools that could help fund regional transit expansion for May 28, but on Tuesday council voted 27-13 in favour of adding the item to the agenda for its May 7-8 meeting.
The city will now be able to provide its input to Metrolinx ahead of a presentation to the province on May 27.
With files from CP24 reporter Katie Simpson.
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