By Sean Delaney
For Toronto Councillor Anthony Perruzza, a raise in property taxes is not the solution to Toronto’s budgetary pressures, and he explained to the Emery Village Voice why he would not support a significant increase in them.
“My perspective is straightforward,” Perruzza said. “Property taxes are not the answer and can’t be relied on to build a city.”
Perruzza said property taxes comprise approximately one-third of the City of Toronto’s budget and will never keep pace with inflation. Hence, the city needs to look elsewhere for solutions. “We need to look at other long-term solutions.”
Perruzza said property taxes make it difficult for people. They make life less affordable, and when affordability is such a big issue with prices constantly going up, there is no way an increase makes life easier.
“Everything is going up, food, rental, housing, so I am not supporting a big property tax increase.”
Perruzza said he would look for relief among efficiencies within the city’s operations.
“There is no question that we do many things in the city very badly,” he said. “And this is where we could realize considerable savings. Our hotel shelter system is enormously expensive; it cost us almost a billion dollars in the last three to four years.”
Perruzza said policymakers recommend continuing the hotel shelter system that expanded during the pandemic. But now that the City has seen pandemic restrictions ease, he would like to see shelter leadership tasked with finding spaces again within church groups, vacant properties, or other avenues where they could realize the same shelter opportunities at a much better cost. Perruzza said that extending the hotel shelter system would cost the city another billion dollars over four to five years.
“Are there savings in the budget? Sure. Does it get us all the way? No. But the deal we got with the province was also bad for us. If we get federal funding and support, that will be good.”
But Perruzza said looking at the province’s funding formula could also help Toronto. The province, he said, will collect their portion of the property taxes and distribute them throughout the province. If that money stayed in Toronto, that could be upward of $2 billion a year contributing to the city.
“We could stop the decline in the city, roads breaking down, garbage all over, grass cutting, better management and maintaining of our parks. We could do a much better job, but the proposed budget continues to oversee the erosion of our infrastructure, and I don’t think that’s healthy for us.”
For questions or comments, please feel free to contact Councillor Perruzza at 416-338-5335 or councillor_Perruzza@toronto.ca