Comment 98439

By Dooner (registered) | Posted March 14, 2014 at 12:19:14

Although some of your criticisms are valid, I'd encourage you to rethink the idea that the Metrolinx conclusions are the only way forward. The Big Move is far from dead, and there are lots of other options.

Some of them can be found if you dig deeper into Metrolinx's own work. See p. 35-36 here: http://www.metrolinx.com/en/regionalplan... which recommends a mix of corporate & personal income tax & a parking levy.

Also, your numbers on the parking levy are iffy - Metrolinx recommended a 25 cent average parking levy, but a $1 levy would raise $1.4 billion... somewhere in between seems reasonable. I think you're also leaving out the NDP's "fairness" tax (on incomes over $500,000), which the liberals want to cancel, and earns $500 million in revenue. Agreed that the NDP are crazy if they think they can't raise the corporate tax rate. But I expect that what they're angling for during the minority government is different than what they'll put forward in an election. Time will tell.

Basically, there are lots of ways to raise revenue for transit and everything else. Hugh McKenzie at the CCPA has done some great work on this: http://behindthenumbers.ca/2014/02/03/ta... We're also not spending nearly as much on transportation & transit than other provinces: http://martinprosperity.org/2013/08/28/y... There's also the context of implementing regressive taxes while more progressive taxation has only recently been abandoned. Here's a better rundown of the NDP's position, I think (although it also leaves some questions): http://rosariomarchese.ca/not-fair-to-cu...

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