AHN News Staff
Toronto, Ontario, Canada (AHN) – Toronto’s candidates for mayor are focusing on tax cuts and other economic issues to the detriment of social issues in the city.
With city elections upcoming, the candidates’ speeches center on reduction of vehicle registration fees and land transfer taxes, freezing property taxes, cutting councilors’ office budgets and reducing the city’s payroll.
Leading candidate Councilor Rob Ford promised voters on Friday to have a $1.67 billion surplus during his first four years in office, without reducing city services. To achieve the promise, Ford plans to cut the cost of government by 2.5 percent or $230 million in 2011. Ford also vowed to save $67.6 million by replacing only 50 percent of employees who retire or resign.
Other measures that Ford plans to impose if he wins and replaces outgoing Mayor David Miller are to save $66.7 million by using a more competitive bidding process and another $80 million by doing away with the fair-wage policy. The latter mandates Toronto to pay wages equivalent to union rates of private sector contract workers.
The overemphasis on economic issues has led some voters to ask in town hall meetings for the candidates’ stand on social issues such as hunger, delayed child care subsidies and homelessness. Because of the economic crisis and poverty in Ontario’s capital city, Toronto food banks handed out 1.1 million baskets of groceries in 2009, which is a 14 percent rise compared to 2008.
About 75,000 Toronto households are waiting for affordable shelter, while the child care subsidies of 17,000 Toronto children have been delayed.
Toronto projects a $503 million budget deficit for 2011. With Ford’s planned spending cuts of $525.6 million next year, the city would have a surplus of $22.6 million, which the councilor estimated would go up to $1.67 billion by the end of 2014.
However, several groups such as the Toronto Board of Trade, former budget chiefs and rival candidates dismissed Ford’s budget surplus prediction as too optimistic, but lacking in specifics on how the next mayor would achieve such large targets.
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