Community Centre "Closures"

On Monday, community centres across the city of Toronto were sort of closed, and some libraries saw reduced hours of operation courtesy of efforts to reduce the city's operating budget. Toronto is currently facing a $575 million dollar budget shortfall for 2008, and has explored several options to make up the difference. Some of those options include: attempts to receive additional provincial or federal funding (refused) and supplemental fees and taxes (deferred by council) in addition to the service cuts.

However, since the full-time staff are still working in the centres, and permit holders are allowed access to the building, the City is still paying for operational costs at many community centres.

The belief among some individuals is that Toronto Mayor David Miller is using the community centre closings and library hours shortening as a means of strong-arming council into approving his two key tax additions: the land transfer tax and the vehicle tax, which are expected to generate $350 million dollars. Miller has also launched a website: Fair Taxes, where he explains his position and justifies the moves. One page that I found particularly interesting was a revenue source comparison between Toronto and the top 35 U.S. cities. The comparison showed that while the U.S. allows its cities to collect other taxes (specifically from property, income and consumption), Toronto obtains revenue from property taxes. (The other sources are the same for both.)

The arguments are compelling. Toronto obviously needs more revenue, and taxation seems to be the only answer. Closing community centres is not going to balance the budget, and the mayor knows this. So why make the decision in the first place?

Follow Up On The Privacy Of Adoption

In June we looked at a Charter of Rights challenge about then-forthcoming legislation regarding adoption information and its availability. Although there have been no developments regarding the challenge, the Adoption Information Disclosure Act went into effect Monday.

To read more SciFi Dad, you can go to Tales From The Dad Side.

Comments

[kittenpie]

I am not exactly opposed to your implication here, but I would point out two things. One, because staff is in the community centres, I don't actually know of libraries that are closing, even when they share facilities. Two, the savings for community centres are being realized in the cutting of part time staffing. The hours of full-time staff cannot be cut, so they are in the building doing other work, but the cost of programming will be the savings. Just to clarify what I know of the situation from inside.