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19 Comments

politics

Duly Quoted: John Parker

By Hamutal Dotan

“I think we all understand that the city is facing a budget crunch and we have to look everywhere to find solutions to the problem. Quite honestly, just off the cuff, I can’t see that a two dollar fee for anything is anything that should get anyone too riled up.”

—Councillor John Parker (Ward 26, Don Valley West), commenting during budget talks yesterday. A raft of proposals was floated during the day-long meeting—part of a sequence of meetings running throughout the week—calling for $2 charges on a variety of previously free City services, such as accessing outdoor pools or visiting Riverdale Farm. (Apparently, in some councillors’ math, charging families the equivalent of $60 over the course of a summer to go swimming is not at all a big deal, while levying a $60 vehicle registration tax is intolerable.) The proposals will be voted on by the budget committee this Friday; if they pass, they will come before a meeting of full city council for final debate.

Comments

  • Matt Madill

    There are already fees for indoor pools… I’m surprised there aren’t for outdoor pools.

    However, I see a problem with this plan. These outdoor pools are usually what the city uses to cool down those without air conditioning on really hot days; they generally extend the hours on the pools on heat alert days. So, would the city continue to charge admission on heat alert days? Sounds rather cruel to me.

    • Anonymous

      But if the poor people die off, there will be more room on the sidewalks for the Fords to drive!

  • Bubba

    obviously John Parker doesn’t live in the real world, as people who use the services (mainly children) can’t afford to pay user fee’s. Maybe it’s time to look at councillors and the mayors salaries and start cutting there!

  • Matt Madill

    By the way, as far as user fees vs. vehicle registration – you have to think of what other municipalities are doing. When a driver renews their license and gets hit with the fee, they’re thinking about the fact that Mississauga, Brampton, Vaughan, Durham, etc. don’t have such a fee. However, fees to use things like pools or to go to attractions or museum type places are pretty much universal.

    I agree with you that it is the drivers of Toronto who can most afford to pay, and so in all fairness they should be the ones hit with the $60/year. However, it looks like an unfair tax when you consider the other cities around Toronto. Perhaps if people were getting some service or priviledge for their money… like a congestion charge. It would be unpopular too, but it would probably feel more ‘fair’ than a straight vehicle registration tax, and would also drive positive change in the way we transport ourselves and our goods around the city.

    • http://twitter.com/tranhelen Helen Tran

      The other cities you are comparing to Toronto don’t have our population… and we shouldn’t be running the biggest city in Ontario like the smaller municipalities around it. The vehicle registration tax should be considered a user fee. The drivers drive on city-maintained roads and as “users” of the roads, they should be partly responsible for the cost involved in maintaining them.

      I agree that a congestion charge is an excellent idea though.

      • Anonymous

        None of the 905 municipalities have to pay for controlled-access freeways. Toronto has to pay for the Gardner and the DVP.

  • http://piorkowski.ca qviri

    There will be user fees for leaf pickup in Etobicoke too, right?

    • Matt Madill

      Yeah, I wish they would stop that.

      I also wish they would stop plowing my street. Seriously. My street has no boulevards (the area between curb and sidewalk) so there is really nowhere to put the snow. The plow comes along and puts the snow on the sidewalk. So then I do my civic duty and shovel the sidewalk, and where am I supposed to put it? I’m not going to pile it on my tiny front garden all winter long. I throw it back on the road. Then, I have to dig out my parking spot on the road across the street. Again, with nowhere to put it, I throw it on the road. So what was the point of plowing? I’d pay them to stop it.

  • DRYDRY

    Bring back the 60 buck vehicle reg. fee you amazing morons.

  • Anonymous

    I’m guessing Parker wants people to look everywhere for savings … except at reinstating the PVT, which *of course* is unacceptable. /sarcasm

    • Anonymous

      And, of course, windrow clearing is too sacred to be touched. Do 905ers get their driveways cleared? Nevermind the downtowners who don’t get it!

      • Anonymous

        But if Del Grande asks where should the money come from to pay for this things, and someone pipes up with the VRT, road tolls, doing away with leaf collection, or anything that the current administration dislikes the idea of, they’re accused being “unhelpful” or “not being realistic”.

  • Anonymous

    User fees are an unfair burden on the poor, the people who are the least likely to have access to alternatives (such as a pool in their building or high-priced vacation options). The VRT, on the other hand, only applied to people who could afford a vehicle to register.

    • Anonymous

      Let’s hope the Mayors Ford don’t take any cues from this Tennessee fire department while TFS’ budget is on the chopping block.

  • http://paul.kishimoto.name Paul Kishimoto

    I thought we elected representatives so they could give this sort of thing a bit more due diligence than “just off the cuff.”

  • Anonymous

    War on the poor!

  • Rich1299

    This is exactly the sort of problem we get when to win an election it costs so much money. Only the financially well off can afford to run for office and too often, though not always, they just cannot comprehend what its like to have a low income where a $2 service fee is a huge deal and would mean the difference between making use of the public facility or not. Especially when kids are involved. No kid should be denied access to public facilities such as swimming pools or whatever just because there’s a service fee. Also their proposal to charge library users for taking out DVDs, which is against the law regardless, but just the fact they were considering it means they don’t comprehend, or just don’t care about the ability of low income people to access entertainment which for many is only accessible through their library since they cannot afford cable at home or a new digital TV/adapter box to watch TV over the air since the broadcasts have all gone digital.

    Isn’t the right to participate in culture a human right? I’m not 100% sure about that but I think in the UN human rights code the ability to access culture is considered a human right. Making that impossible for low income people due to new service fees sure does seem like a violation of something, even if just common human decency.

    • Anonymous

      Toronto is inching toward a plutocracy, much as the US did in the late nineteenth century. The reduction of office budgets is one small step. Long-term freezing or reducing councillors’ salaries is another, increasingly likely, step.

      Columnists like Sue-Ann Levy have already been doing the softening-up work. She has said that politics is a ‘calling’, rather than a career, and heavily implies that only former businesspeople, lawyers and other professionals should be allowed to do it (heaven forbid that a – gasp! – electrician, barmaid, or cashier might have a valid point of view, and might know slightly more about life for the rest of us than the professionals do). This comes perilously close to the idea of ‘noblesse oblige’, with all its antediluvian meaning.

      To take a look at what this system looks like in its mature form, see the workings of the TDSB. They earn a pittance for the work they are expected to do. School trustees are a mixed bag of young ‘uns angling to build up their political experience before vaulting to higher office, retirees with an alternative income, and the very occasional person who is independently wealthy. None of them (the independently wealthy excepted) can afford to do it as anything other than a hobby, or at best a part-time job, which corrodes the working of democracy and the board as no-one has the time.

  • http://twitter.com/dangouge dangouge

    So John Parker would support $2 fees every time a windrow is cleared in the former North York?