Toronto budget should protect city’s most vulnerable, councillors told

Thestar.com
Feb. 7, 2019
Jennifer Pagliaro

Residents feeling squeezed as city council contemplates hiking TTC fares, increasing recreation fees and the lack of funding for youth at risk of violence has pushed some to demand this year’s budget do more for those who are most vulnerable.

Kadijo Afrah, with the Somali Canadian Forum, took her turn at a public microphone on Thursday to say council needs to make good on its promise to address the roots of youth violence.
Kadijo Afrah spoke to the budget committee Thursday to urge council to make good on its promise to address the roots of youth violence.

Afrah said the underfunded Toronto Youth Equity Strategy, approved by council in 2014 but never fully implemented, has supported great programs, working with incarcerated youth and empowering youth mentors to teach others about mental health and trauma.

“We know that these programs that the youth equity strategy is investing in is working,” Afrah, a Regent Park resident, told the budget committee. “But it’s a shame the don’t have the support they need to fully do that in other communities.”

It was one of several common refrains in the second-floor committee room at city hall, where dozens of speakers overwhelmingly called for council to fund better services without disproportionately shouldering the costs or consequences on lower income or other marginalized groups.

They were backed by a panel that found while investments from previous years were maintained, other budgetary changes could cause additional hardships for residents struggling in an increasingly unaffordable city.

After facing pointed questions from councillors, this week city staff reported the youth equity strategy could be “fully implemented” with $2.5 million in new spending, saying 84 of 110 actions were already “funded, implemented or in progress.”

Afrah noted that that measure of success was very broad and pushed to know whether the funding plan presented by staff would be enough to help hers and other communities sustain these programs in the long-term.

“How many of them are sustainable and here for the long haul? How many of them are just pilot projects that will die off in a couple of years?”

The $13.5-billion operating budget -- which keeps property taxes at the staff-reported 2.55 per cent rate of inflation as Mayor John Tory promised during the 2018 campaign -- is still a work in progress. Council has the final say at a meeting March 7.

As in past years, city staff convened a panel for the budget process to look at how equitable this budget is for vulnerable and diverse groups, including women, Indigenous people and those with disabilities.

In a briefing to council, the panel -- made up of policy experts, community advocates and those who have experienced poverty and discrimination -- noted the budget currently tabled by staff “avoids significant service level reductions and sustains investments made in previous years to advance council approved equity strategies including the poverty reduction strategy.

“There are however, some notable changes to the operating budget that may deepen barriers to equity for many Torontonians.”

The panel noted the increase in TTC fares specifically, which they said “will increase financial barriers to transit for many low income Torontonians who depend on this public transportation to get to work, school and run necessary errands.” They also said the “lack of meaningful increases in revenue in the 2019 budget limited the city’s capacity to impact equity on a large scale.”

If approved as currently tabled, this budget would see TTC fares increase between 5 and 10 cents per ride, likely in April for regular adult fares, seniors, students and those using the TTC’s Fair Pass for eligible low-income residents.

Eli Aaron, the transit lead for the Toronto Youth Cabinet, which advises council on issues affecting young people, urged budget committee on Thursday to freeze fares.

“Today you are considering a budget that will make life increasingly unaffordable in Toronto -- a TTC budget which hikes student fares by 5 per cent or roughly double the rate of inflation,” he said noting the year-over-year fare hikes and students’ heavy reliance on transit to get around in the city.

“It could be argued that we cannot afford to keep fares in line with inflation. But how can we afford to keep property taxes in line with inflation? Why do riders pay two thirds of the cost of operating the TTC while drivers contribute next to nothing to the transportation department’s $400 million operating budget? Council has prioritized maintaining low taxes for homeowners and no taxes for drivers over affordability for transit users.”

At the same time, the fees for all of the city-run recreation programs would increase by 4.07 per cent. That includes everything from child swim classes (from $79.98 to $83.24) to learn to skate programs ($43.32 to $45.08).

Meanwhile, at last count there were waiting lists thousands of people long for recreation spaces and fee subsidies for child care while the proposed budget does not fully invest in plans council previously approved to increase the availability of those programs.

“I’m here today just to talk about the feeling of this city being on a razor’s edge,” began Toronto resident Sean Sydney as he addressed the budget committee at city hall.

“Our shelter systems are full. We see pictures of TTC platforms that are teeming with people to the point of being unsafe. We all experience infrastructure that’s crumbling and underinvestment that’s crippling the future of this city.”

Sydney noted that this budget has been described by Tory’s budget chief Councillor Gary Crawford as a difficult one.

Crawford earlier said the city would “continue to provide the kind of investments that we have over the last number of years, whether it’s poverty reduction, youth hubs, child care, but there will be some challenges, no doubt.” Tory was in Scarborough Thursday to hear directly from residents.

“It’s only difficult because council is making it so,” Sydney said. “Keeping property taxes at or below the rate of inflation is not a solution. It’s not a vision. It’s a slogan.”

Sheila Block, a member of the city’s equity panel and a senior economist at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, a left-leaning think tank, said she agreed the city appears to be at a “breaking point.”

“We need to start having a real conversation about the revenues that are required to pay for the services that we all need,” she said “Until we have that conversation the city will continue to unravel.”