Using a pretty sad-looking bunch of emergency and city social workers as a backdrop, Toronto’s mayor, Olivia Chow, told residents Monday she’ll be hiking property taxes an “affordable” 6.9% this year.
That 6.9% includes the annual 1.5% building levy put in place by her predecessor John Tory, which she has made very clear she’ll be using to build — at an inflated cost of nearly $500,000 per unit — “affordable” homes.
This is on top of the almost obscene 9.5% property tax hike last year and 7% the year before.
I still remember how Tory resigned in early 2023 but stayed on until mid-February to shepherd his budget and the 7% tax hike through council. That was of course after spending with reckless abandon during the COVID years, including on bike lanes we didn’t need.
That means in the past three years we’ve been hit with a 24% increase all in.
I always have to remind people that doesn’t include our extra water and garbage rates, which were taken off the property tax by another socialist, David Miller, nearly 20 years ago to make our property tax rate appear lower.
This year’s budget, according to Chow, will go towards feeding 8,000 more kids—duplicating the efforts of school nutrition programs.
She’s really proud of that one because she’s been promoting it for weeks.
She also intends to feed youth through CampTO food programs and invest in youth violence programs.
As I’ve said many times, Chow was pushing this ideology more than 20 years ago when she was a councillor in the Mel Lastman government and created the Toronto Youth Cabinet.
She also intends to extend Sunday service at Toronto public libraries, an add-on to Tory’s spending on more youth spaces at libraries and the elimination of late fines.
And then there’s her plan to increase access to cultural initiatives — local arts, festivals and events.
I sense more funding for diversity events which she can attend dressed in another costume.
But seriously these priorities all reek of a politician trapped in the Year 2000.
Chow has not progressed since then and has no understanding of the needs and priorities of Torontonians in 2025.
For the 24% extra I’ve paid over the past three years, I don’t feel 24% safer.
In fact, I feel very unsafe in antisemitic Toronto where Chow and police chief Myron Demkiw have enabled and escalated the illegal protests and prayer sessions on our streets by turning a blind eye to the harassment, threats and assaults on innocent Jews by the Hamasniks.
The Toronto Police Service’s most recent variance report (which is a few months old) says it all.
To the end of September, the police have attended 2,000 unplanned events (those without a permit) and it appears the extra policing costs to simply keep the peace will amount to close to $20-million by the end of 2024.
Can you imagine how much Chow and her Hamas sympathizers on council could save if they simply gave the police the directive to remove the terrorist sympathizers and prayer crowd from our streets.
They have the tools to do so.
This is a case of not reading the room at all. Torontonians are fed up with the protests, not just the Jewish community.
For 24% more, I certainly don’t see an improvement in our roads and sidewalks. That includes Chow’s pet bike lanes. I’ve had far too many bike tire flats to count. This past summer, I was caught downtown after attending a pro-Israel rally with a flat tire and had to make it home using an Uber van.
Speaking of bike lanes and gridlock, I dare say a few traffic agents (also contained in the budget) won’t stop the congestion.
Chow and her fellow Marxists seem unable to get it through their thick heads that bike lanes, all manner of traffic calming, endless uncoordinated construction and a crappy crime-laden TTC create more drivers.
I haven’t even mentioned the plethora of drug addicts, beggars and unhoused camped out in our parks and on our sidewalks—or the illegal migrants who continue to flock to our Sanctuary City because Chow and her fellow Marxists on council would never say no.
What tourists must think when they come to “safe and affordable” (according to Chow) Toronto and see Hamasniks praying on our major streets or protesters dancing and blocking the streets outside the Toronto Eaton Centre or Sankofa Square only home to drug addicts.
I look around the city of which I was once proud and only feel disgust at what our politicians have created.
If anything, our quality of life has declined 24% — if not more — in the past three years.
