More Taxes, Gases, Pointless Parliamentary Posturing

Mayor David Miller passed a compromised version of his contentious land transfer and vehicle registration taxes yesterday. The taxes will raise only about $175 million of the $414 million estimated budget shortfall, and will add about $3,700 to the price of the average home. "I think it's a vote of confidence in Toronto," said the Mayor inexplicably about the plan to layer more costs onto taxpayers in a city with a hollowed-out manufacturing base, declining incomes, and anemic economic growth.

A report from Australian scientists has found that CO2 emissions are rising much faster than had been anticipated. In apparently unrelated news, Toronto experiences summer in October, and there's a celebrity beach house bonfire going on in Malibu.

In an attempt to look concerned about the imminent collapse of the ecosystem, the Liberals offered up a Throne Speech amendment in Parliament asking the government to take "real action" to meet Kyoto greenhouse gas targets. The motion also included other features to ensure that the Bloc and NDP would vote against it, thereby avoiding an election which the Liberals would lose.

The Canadian dollar plunged over a penny and a half against the U.S. greenback yesterday, giving some relief to Canadian exporters and allowing headline writers to say things like, "High-flying loonie drops back to earth." The decline was not accompanied by a flood of Canadian shoppers racing home from outlet malls near Buffalo.

Photo by Bitpicture from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.