Poll finds support for Mayor Tory's budget austerity
Just over half of Torontonians support city council's directive for departments and agencies to cut 2.6 per cent.

TheStar.com
Oct. 5, 2016
David Rider

A small majority of Torontonians support city council’s cost-cutting directive to departments and agencies, according to a new Forum Research poll.

The random sampling of 882 Toronto adults conducted October 1 also suggested strong support for Mayor John Tory’s emphasis on belt-tightening, rather than raising property taxes, to tame the 2017 city budget.

Some city agencies, including the TTC, Toronto Community Housing and Toronto public health, have struggled to cut 2.6 per cent of spending without affecting services, or refused to heed the reduction requested by council at Tory’s urging in July.

Council also resolved to work to keep the 2017 property tax hike at or below inflation — a key Tory 2014 campaign promise — while balancing an operating budget that currently has a half-billion-dollar shortfall.

Some 54 per cent of poll respondents said they approve of the 2.6-per-cent request, while almost one-third disapproved. The remainder said they did not know.

Support for belt-tightening was highest among those aged 55 to 64, middle-income earners, Etobicoke residents and those who commute by car. Support in the old city of Toronto was lowest.

But while poll respondents overall favoured austerity, they didn’t think it could be applied evenly across agencies.

Half said the TTC can’t afford the cut, compared to 37 per cent who disagreed. Likewise, those who didn’t think the Toronto Public Library could afford to spend less outnumbered those who did.

But a majority — 54 per cent — think Toronto police service can afford to trim its budget compared to 44 per cent who say it cannot.

When asked for the best way to balance the city’s budget, 63 per cent of respondents favoured cutting costs, compared to 26 per cent who favoured raising taxes.

Those who support a tax hike to balance the books include the oldest Torontonians, downtown residents, the wealthy and the most educated.

“While most agree with his across-the-board approach to budget cutting, it is interesting to note the one group in favour of raising taxes over cutting spending is the oldest, a very important cohort to Mayor Tory’s electoral success,” said Forum president Lorne Bozinoff.

The margin of error for the interactive voice response telephone survey is plus or minus 3 percentage points 19 times out of 20.

Forum keeps its poll results in the data library of the University of Toronto's political science department.