A garbage collection crew is pictured in January, 2012, picking up residential trash and recycling in Toronto.Kevin Van Paassen/The Globe and Mail
One day after Toronto city council held the property-tax increase to the rate of inflation, it also gave the green light to hiking fees for garbage bins by more than 58 per cent.
Council voted 42-2 Wednesday in favour of John Tory's 2015 budget, which allows the new mayor to maintain his campaign promise to not increase property taxes beyond the inflation rate – at 2.75 per cent including the Scarborough subway levy. In order to help offset that, council voted to increase the fees on a number of services for residents, including water rates and waste collection.
"On the one hand, we're not going to raise taxes through the roof, but there's going to be some increase to the cost of living here because the cost of delivering services to people are going up," Mr. Tory said Wednesday. "The very same people who are going to have to pay a little more through the various means are the very same people who are going to benefit from the investments we're making for the city."
Wednesday's vote means that, on top of a 3-per-cent rate increase for garbage waste collection overall, homeowners in April will also pay 58 per cent extra on their garbage-bin fee. Residents with a medium bin will pay $88 a year instead of $56; those with large bins will pay $247, instead of $156; and those with extra large bins will pay $343 instead of $217.
Mr. Tory defended the increases Wednesday by calling the approach "sensible," and said that residents can reduce their fees by going down a bin size.
"You are able to actually take a different decision in your life and actively result in saving you money. … Whereas with your property tax, if you just put it all on your property-tax bill, people have no option but to pay that."
He also said that the cost of fee increases for families would be balanced by other measures in the budget, like $95-million in improvements to the TTC – including letting kids under the age of 13 ride for free.
Councillor James Pasternak, a member of the budget committee, expressed unease with the garbage-fee increases, saying the city needs to look at the fee levels over the next year. "I would admit that these fees are somewhat Draconian and they will be hard on working families," Mr. Pasternak said Wednesday. "They are a lot higher than I feel comfortable with."
Councillor Janet Davis said the share of the city budget covered by user fees has increased dramatically in recent years. "Whether you pay in a user fee or you pay in your taxes, the people of Toronto are faced with having to cover the cost of services," she said. "Should it be done on the tax side or should it be done through user fees? I think we should be having a fundamental discussion about that."
But Deputy Mayor Denzil Minnan-Wong characterized the reduction of the city's subsidy for garbage fees as a necessary tradeoff for increasing transit and other services. "The money has to be found somewhere," he said. "One of the ways that it's found is taking money from that rebate and putting it back in the operating budget."
Wednesday's vote, which kept intact the bulk of Mr. Tory's original budget proposal, represented a win for the mayor. The final vote passed overwhelmingly, with only Rob Ford and Giorgio Mammoliti voting against it. But the meeting did not come without surprises.
Mr. Ford tried to move 31 last-minute motions designed to cut spending, including a motion to trim the budget of the mayor's office. Only two of Mr. Ford's motions passed.
Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam, meanwhile, made a surprise – but failed – attempt to reinstate the personal vehicle tax. The elimination of that tax by council was one of Mr. Ford's first acts when elected in 2010, and considered by Mr. Ford as one of his signature accomplishments.