Proposals include:
A regional gas tax of 10 to 20 cents per litre;
A new levy of $1 to $2 a day per commercial parking space;
A regional sales tax adding 1 to 2 per cent on the HST; and
Special fees to bring your vehicle into designated areas, like downtown Toronto.
5 comments:
Um, what? What does charging fees for a government service (like all licensing, etc functions) have to do with privatisation?
I was in Toronto a few weeks ago and am astonished at how quickly traffic has gone from 'bad' to 'really truly unbearably bad'.
More roads - and road taxes - will not address the problem. A proper transit system is required. There has barely been an expansion in, well, ever.
Meanwhile, on arriving at the airport, I've tried to do perfectly ordinary things, like give a talk in Richmond Hill, or at Humber College, or go to a ball game, or go out to Hamilton or Kitchener, and there is no way to do any of this except by car or very slow city bus.
A proper light rail network would have the dual advantage of reducing traffic and making life bearable for visitors. Toronto certainly spends a lot of money on roads - more than it can afford. It should start spending money on things that replace the need for roads.
Of course, it has a Liberal government, so... That. Will. Never. Happen.
You'll have to forgive Mr Morton Jon, he's from the pampered, pass-the-buck, boomer generation. Clearly not all boomers are out to lunch on how the economy works, but when you read the breakdown on how that generation votes, I hope you'll understand my sweeping generalization.
While I find his blogs on legal matters informative and interesting, on social and fiscal matters he's as far out to the right (and wrong) as most of his cohort.
He likes to hide to his economic elitism behind question(s) and context-free quotes.
Keep them coming Mr Morton, I really value a difference of opinion when it's expressed politely.
Back to work so my taxes can bail out the banksters, "free-marketers" and other neo-liberal charlatans, looks like they're gonna need it again real soon.
A Laughing liberal
I think you miss my point -- once we start privatising traditional government roles -- such as textbooks for students (remember when they were "free") -- it becomes easier to privatise other stuff. As for being a pampered boomer, well, I have been lucky but I've held a job since I was 17 and that's how I went through school.
But user-fees for government services is not even close to privatisation; I pay to use the TTC, to mail birthday cards, for wine at the LCBO, and to renew my drivers license, and nobody thinks that those are private companies. When I grew up in Halifax we paid to cross the bridge or ride the ferry. How are road-use fees different?
Government can pay to implement various services via a mix of general taxation and user fees. In any particular case you could argue one or the other is better policy, but both are very different from privatisation.
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