Rulers Target Toronto Workers and Small Businesses

Denounce proposals of Toronto ruling elite to make the people pay!

Led by new Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow, the ruling elite have prepared a wide range of measures to pass the burden of problems of the imperialist economy onto the working class and small businesses. The monopoly-controlled mass media contend that if the present anti-social direction of the economy and rule of the rich are to be maintained and strengthened then vast sums of additional social wealth must be expropriated from the working class and small- and medium-sized businesses and handed over to the global cartels and their billionaire owners.

The measures that have been discussed and organized for implementation in themselves and taken together will drain social wealth away from the working class, small-businesses and social programs, and put it in the coffers of the rich to use as they wish. The intensified anti-social offensive will generally reduce the standard of living of working people and the middle strata, worsening the living and social conditions of many.

The ruling elite have instituted as regular practice massive subsidies in handouts to global cartels and for war preparations in concert with U.S. imperialism. They are starving social programs of needed investments to instead pay the rich and their self-serving destructive war economy. The proposed Toronto anti-social measures do nothing to solve the problems the city faces but in fact will make the situation worse. Inequality will continue to increase along with the attendant social and natural problems.

Under the "strong mayor" legislation introduced last year by Ontario Premier Doug Ford, Mayor Chow has the political power to push through an anti-social budget without official opposition. In defence of the people's interests and their socialized economy, working people and their allies are called to duty to oppose in actions with analysis all these measures and struggle for a new pro-social direction of the economy that defends their claim on the social wealth they produce and opens a path forward to having the political power necessary to decide all those matters that affect their lives.

Some Anti-Social Measures the Ruling Elite Are Preparing to
Impose on Torontonians

City staff in January floated a "double digit" property tax increase of 10.5 per cent (almost $400 per year on average) to be added to the existing tax bill of the average home. Mayor Chow and her entourage had warned darkly that without additional federal money for the city that percentage could climb as high as 16.5 per cent resulting in a $600 average property tax increase.

The City Budget passed on February 14 included a 9.5 per cent property tax increase which, while less than the increase threatened, still amounts to approximately $372 per year. This is the highest increase since amalgamation in 1998 and follows on the seven per cent increase approved last year. The property tax increase will not only punish homeowners but renters as well, as the increase will be passed on in higher rent. Small-businesses in particular will be directly affected and it could be the final nail in a bankruptcy coffin for many. The disappearance of yet more small- and medium-sized businesses accelerates the imperialist trend of the concentration of ownership, control and power over the economy and politics in the hands of a few.

In the lead-up to the Mayor's budget presentation, proposals to introduce vehicle tolls on the city's main thoroughfares were discussed. This would have been a medieval attack not only because of its regressive nature against equality before the law and regulations but a move that would result in restriction of trade and movement similar to feudal tolls on the movement of people and goods. The measure would do nothing to decrease vehicular gridlock on city streets and highways as the ruling elite are conversely pushing vehicle ownership and use by doling out billions to the rich for electric vehicle production and road infrastructure. Meanwhile they refuse to make mass transit throughout the city more efficient, comfortable and free for everyone.

Another anti-social measure pushed but ultimately not included in this budget was a municipal sales tax that would have been on top of the hated HST.

The major city expenditures are for the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC), general infrastructure, and police, fire and emergency services. The fact that the city is forced to pay for the price of production of the TTC and to tax residents to raise the funds belies the modern reality that mass transit produces social wealth for the city's economy and its principal owners. Those billionaires in control and ownership of the most significant parts of the city's economy do not pay for the use of mass transit by their operations yet benefit from it economically and in fact could not operate without it.

The TTC should not be a city expenditure but instead be considered objectively as means of production for the major parts of the city's economy. The largest enterprises and institutions of the city require the TTC to bring their workers to and from work, shoppers to and from their businesses and students to and from their educational facilities. They should pay for this service according to the number of their employees, customers and students in the same manner they must pay for other means of production and distribution they use in the operation of their businesses.

Aside from a property tax increase, tolls and a municipal sales tax, the ruling elite and mass media want higher fees for all manner of city services including parking as well as cuts to city services, including reduced snow plowing and sheltering of the homeless. Service cuts would leave unresolved pressing problems such as the lack of childcare and long-term care, and the mental health and opioid overdose crisis. This must not pass!

Organize and Demand a New Pro-Social Direction for Toronto's Economy!
Stop Paying the Rich!
Increase Investments in Social Programs and Infrastructure that Serve the People!
Make Toronto a Zone for Peace!
Our Security Lies in Our Defence of the Rights of All Not in a Militarized Police Force!

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This article was published in

Volume 54 Numbers 1-2 - January - February 2024

Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmlm2024/Articles/M5400114.HTM

Website:  www.cpcml.ca   Email:  editor@cpcml.ca