A new report by CCPA-Ontario economist Hugh Mackenzie lays out a range of revenue generating options that could readily fund plans to expand public transit in the Greater Toronto Area and Hamilton. Mackenzie assesses all of the funding options currently on the table, weighs the pros and cons of each, and considers a package of tax options that would be fair and efficient. His report comes at a time when the city and the province are considering options to move transit expansion plans forward. It offers a range of solutions that could represent a compromise position for politicians seeking a resolution to the region's political and traffic gridlock.
Read the full report: Toronto’s $2.5 Billion Question: GTA and Hamilton Public Transit Expansion Revenue Options.
You can also read Tess Kalinowski's article in the Toronto Star about this report: Who benefits from the answer to Toronto’s $2.5 billion transit question?
TORONTO – A new study by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA-Ontario) lays out a compromise solution to political gridlock over how to pay for the region’s $2.5 billion in planned public transit expansion.
Toronto’s $2.5 Billion Question: GTA and Hamilton Public Transit Expansion Revenue Options, by economist Hugh Mackenzie, weighs the full range of tax options and finds a sweet spot among provincial and municipal taxes that would foot the bill.
“No single tax option raises enough money to pay for the proposed expansion and address current and future operating cost issues,” says Mackenzie. “That means the region will have to rely on several different options to raise the needed revenue. The good news is there are plenty of options to reach a compromise.”
The report settles on this mix of provincial and municipal revenue-generation options:
Additional revenue to address operating cost needs could be raised by restoring a portion of the cut in corporate tax rates implemented since 2010.
“Although the major regional revenue sources in this package are regressive,” Mackenzie says, “the regressive impact is mitigated by the use to which the revenue will be put. Public transit delivers greater benefits to lower- and middle-income households.
“In fact, transit benefit is so strongly progressive that expanded transit funded from modestly regressive taxes is, overall, progressive.”
The report rules out road tolls for their administrative complexity, uncertain distributive impact and limited revenue-raising potential. It rules out land transfer taxes and property taxes because they are already important local sources of revenue. It rules out vehicle registration charges because of their very regressive impact. And it rules out transit fares because the farebox revenue share in the GTHA is too high relative to world standards.
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The report can be downloaded at www.policyalternatives.ca/ontario. For more information, please contact: Trish Hennessy, director, CCPA-Ontario (416) 525-4927.
Ontario's provincial budget has been tabled and the conclusion is: Ontarians can expect four more years of austerity budgets. Read the tea leaves in this instant budget analysis by Hugh Mackenzie and Trish Hennessy here.
Working women in Ontario are doing all they can to get by: they're working hard, they're driving enrolments in bachelor and master's degree programs at our universitites. But when it comes to pay, the gap between men and women remains. Women in Ontario earn 28% less than men. And we know that racialized women, Aboriginal women and women with disabilities disproportionately find themselves on the lower end of the income scale in Ontario - reflecting systemic discrimination in the labour market. None of this is inevitable.
Learn more about the pay gap between men and women in Ontario with this new CCPA-Ontario report by legal expert Mary Cornish and find out how we can close the gap. For starters, take a look at this simple, shareable flow chart:
(Click to enlarge)
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