TorontoIAM Daily Blog Report: Kids Buying Cars, Sinking the Leafs, Councillor Carroll on Ottawa's Surplus, TO to Tax Water?

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This is a selection of recent popular blog articles from TorontoIAM where you will find the best blogs from Toronto, Ontario as well as video uploads, social networking, rumors, and blog authoring

Taxing Water in TO?

In a recent post from Blog TO, Rick Moldovanyi reveals that the City of Toroto is considering adding a tax to bottled water. “Well, it was, until it realised that the vast number of retailers selling bottled water would make the tax nearly impossible to collect. And, oh yeah, the tax would also likely be illegal.” The City of Toronto Act prohibits sales taxes on items other than alcohol, cigarettes, and entertainment. Moldovanyi admits that Toronto is facing a large budget shortfall, but taxing a “necessary” item isn’t the answer.

In the post, the blogger recommends, if Toronto is going to add a (“possibly illegal”) sales tax, “why not tax pop? People need water… especially on hot days, but Coke or Pepsi are hardly necessities.” Perhaps a tax on pop could lead more people to actually drink water. Isn’t the point to “tax products that… can lead to illness. Isn't that why alcohol and cigarettes are taxed higher than other goods?” Some call the bottled water industry “dangerous and irresponsible,” but a lack of public drinking fountains only feeds this trend. And “even if you were planning on only drinking tap water, the city plans to raise the price on doing that too!”

To Sink, or Not to Sink?

Damien Cox at Spin says the notion that sometimes it has to get worse before gets better may not apply to hockey teams. He calls attention to the popular suggestion that, due to the Leaf’s uncertain future, “the team should ‘blow up’ its current roster, sink to the bottom of the NHL standings for a few years and rebuild with stars through the draft.” However, he says, there is no guarantee that this plan would work. In a “worst-case scenario,” they’d just have a bunch of “young kids learning how to lose together.”

In Cox’s post, he points to the Washington Capitals, who should “serve as a warning” to any other team considering this strategy. “After a 39-win season in 2002-03, the Caps haven't finished above 14th in the East and aren't going much higher this year,” although it may be too early to tell. Their fifth pick of the 2006 draft, Nicklas Backstrom, is still “getting his feet wet in the NHL, and the fifth pick of last summer's draft, defenceman Karl Alzner, is a couple of years away.” Even so, they just don’t have the quality prospects that “would theoretically fuel a surge up the NHL standings anytime in the near future.” But perhaps they’ve got to “wallow” a little longer to pull off what the Quebec Nordiques did in the late ‘80’s and early 90’s.

No Cars for Kids

In the Torontoist, Rebecca Pardo informs us that there is absolutely no minimum age for buying a car in Ontario. None. “Which is why a 14-year-old kid from Ajax was able to buy a '91 Mazda last Friday… go for a ride with his two friends… crashing the car and killing both his buddies.” The 14-year-old is facing two charges of death by criminal negligence.

The post quotes Premier Dalton McGuinty, who has pledged to "take a look at what, if anything, we need to do, flowing from this tragedy." The ridiculousness of this statement is not lost on the blogger, who points to Conservative MPP Bob’s Runciman’s response, “maybe we should not let kids under the legal driving age purchase cars.” Pardo likens it to the idea that we cannot buy alcohol before legal age, so why something anything else that may lead to “unsavory” or even “fatal” situations.

Councillor Carroll Calls Ottawa “Out of Touch”

On Toronto Budget Chair Shelly Carroll’s site, Carroll released a message on behalf of the people of Toronto: “cities will continue to seek what is rightfully theirs.” Canada has unprecedented growth, a record high dollar, and low unemployment… yet “the federal government is enjoying a $14- billion surplus.” She questions why cities constantly “need to raise taxes [like Toronto’s land transfer tax] to meet basic service needs when Ottawa has an enormous surplus?” In addition, why did the FMC report that the “infrastructure deficit in Canadian municipalities is $123 billion?”



In the post, Carroll argues that "Cities and towns do not have access to revenues that grow when the economy grows… the surplus Ottawa is enjoying is… financed by cities.”

She states that Canada’s municipalities are requesting one cent of the GST and due to this “the federal finance minister says cities are ‘whining.’ Is it ‘whining’ to demand that public funds be spent judiciously?” She concludes that Ottawa is “our of touch” with the rest of the country. Its Building Canada Fund falls very short of what our cities need in order to “remain vibrant, liveable, and economically sound in the 21st century.”

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