Miller appointed himself to run toronto invests after Bryant did his recycling thing, the job pays 300k
Miller is out
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Exactly what I was thinking....
As to Miller quitting, you can kiss any candidate on the right goodbye now. If Miller had run against say John Tory, John Tory could have have won simply be running against David Miller. Now that is no longer possible.
Smitherman would seem to be the early favourite and he's just slightly to the right of David Miller. Slightly. Oh well, at least he's gay and he won't run on some fucked up morality platform.
At the end of the Day, Miller's legacy will be that of abject failure. He really did very little of note while in office other than bankrupt a great city. He completely exhausted the 1.3 billion dollar rainy day fund that we had in the bank simply to run the city. He built nothing, he improved nothing, he left us nothing but debt and a bloated bureaucracy.
Sounds like a good centrist to me. Welcome to club.Fiscal conservative and social liberal.
That is assuming that Miller had any stones at all. He was a bully who was able to accomplish everything he set out to as he had a lefty city council that voted with him on whatever he said.
Look at all the things he was able to bully through,
$60 vehicle registration fee for improving roads (yet cyclists don't have to pay for this - and for the record I am a cyclist)
TTC agendas - i.e. rate hikes, and using justification such as claiming that the Metropass is costing too much
Raising property tax and including land transfer tax - why punish people who choose to live and buy homes in the city.
There are many more examples of this, but like any good bully, when it looks like a fair fight or against tough odds, they will back away and suck their thumb.
Have you ever heard of any TO mayor who reduced water rates, property taxes or TTC fares? Any mayor would have had to do the same as Miller, I don't care who you are. Also TO pays less property tax than the 905 area based on a per unit basis.$300 Million for future sick leave payout
$60 per year per vehicle registered in Toronto
higher water rates
higher property taxes
higher TTC fairs
Higher land transfer taxes
....
good bye and don't let the door hit you on way out
As far as vehicle registeration and land transfer taxes, if Miller didn't do this, he would have to find money somewhere else, perhaps even higher property taxes. Any mayor would need to tax residents at some point to get money, there is no other option. Where do you guys think money comes from in municipal government?
You wait and see what the next mayor will do, you're dreaming if any mayor will reduce taxes, it's a matter of how and where they raise taxes, you can't avoid it.
Based on popularity I think the next mayor will be Bryant, lol, Smitherman said he won't run, Tory is still being coy.
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No kidding, that's what I'm trying to point out, I don't care what taxes you look at, it comes from residents paying taxes.
I'm ignoring it because it's small compared to where to the numbers we're looking at. Having run many businesses in life I'm quite aware of expenses, lol, that's funny. But when you're looking at government finances the ratio of reveneues to expenses is much larger than in private businesses.sukdeep said:
What I mean is for a $500,000 home, TO pays less taxes than in Woodbridge for example. I argued with a family friend on this and said he was nuts but when I did my homework he was right.sukdeep said:
Thats only true for the last 20 years or so of politics, traditional conservatives and modern libertarians (what I suspect people here are at least in part) believe the government should be small and stay out of peoples lives, whether it's keep your hands off my money or let me do whatever I want as long as I don't hurt anyone else.
Modern conservative politicians don't hold those views, but thats what being a conservative traditionally meant.
This is part of the problem with the Neo-Conservative movement, as the neocons favour big government getting involved in so-called "morality" issues.
Given their influence in U.S. and to a lesser extent in Canada (the Jim Flaherty types), those of us who want less government in our lives are pretty much out of luck.
A $500,000 home in Toronto is this:
http://www.realtor.ca/propertyDetails.aspx?propertyId=8729555
A $500,000 home in Woodbridge is this:
http://www.realtor.ca/propertyDetails.aspx?propertyId=8715905
You can't compare apples to oranges.
Apparently, Smitherman will not be re-appointed to the McGuinty cabinet in the next shuffle to free him to run in the mayority contest.
Bingo, the mill rate in TO is lower, thus taxes lower in TO than Woodbridge for example, although Market Value is the same for the two properties.
Are the taxes lower on equivalent houses? Ie Toronto market values are higher, but the mill rate is lower. Hard to make statements like taxes in TO are relatively low in this situation. You'd have to find similar lot sizes, similar house types, etc.
I know that the taxes in Etobicoke have gone up considerably since being joined with Toronto. It seems to me that Toronto should be able to benefit from some big economies of scale, but they don't seem to be able to pull it off. This is why people ask politicians to focus on reducing the costs of running the city through efficiency gains, getting the best bang for the buck, rather than continually raising taxes.
They finally got around to taking out the trash at City Hall. Miller was just such a huge disappointment as mayor.
I read in the Globe and Mail yesterday that when Miller took office in October 2003, the City's (balanced) budget was 6.6 Billion. Now, in October 2009 the City's budget is 8.7 billion. That's roughly 2 billion dollars, or 30% more.
That is insane.
That is insane.
Actually, if you look at the history of politics in a number of countries (US, Canada, UK, etc.), the political right have always included those whose primary motivations are socially conservative, and who have sought to some degree impose conservative social mores through political means.
You are correct in that these groups have co-existed with the small-government conservatives (think the Red Tories, or at least some members of the Reagan Republicans during the 1980s), often rather uneasily (you can even see this tension within the Conservative party in Canada).
Libertarians at times were associated with these "conservative" groups, but they on average tend to be political independents, since they generally do not easily fit in politically to the right or left.
However, I would hardly say that "traditional" conservatives have never included social conservatives of what I just described. And in the US at any rate, the social conservatives have firm control of the Republican party to the exclusion of other political voices.
Samurai Joey
