Toronto councillor Doug Ford.Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail
A recent study by the Fraser Institute has shown that Canadian families are spending more on taxes each year than they do on the basic necessities of life.
Despite this, there are those who want us to blindly support a plan that will put $50-billion of new taxes on the backs of hard-working Ontarians.
Metrolinx, Ontario's transit agency, and the province want to increase your taxes, by how much? $800 a year? $900 a year? $1,000 a year? The truth is, we just don't know, because they won't tell us.
This, from a provincial government that has shown us, one boondoggle after the next, that they do not deserve your trust.
How many subway lines could have been built over the past 10 years with the billions of dollars this province wasted on an eHealth system that never worked, helicopters they never needed and gas plants they never built?
Under the Liberals, our province's budget has ballooned to a staggering $124-billion. We are spending $11-billion a year on interest alone for the $260-billion debt accumulated during their watch. Now they are asking you to hand over more of your hard-earned money. Where will it end?
What will your family have to give up to pay for these new taxes? Very few people have money in their pockets today that they don't already need for something else – like food on their table, rent, daycare, transportation, clothing etc. Ontario is already an expensive enough place to live.
This is not about visions of city building, or transit expansion. Folks, don't be misled: This is about finding new ways to raise your taxes.
They want a sales tax, a vehicle tax, a gas tax, a parking tax, a payroll tax, toll lanes – the list goes on and on, and on.
Tax, tax, tax, spend, spend, spend.
Until the provincial government is willing to look internally at its inflated budget, to engage the private sector, to exhaust every other available avenue, we can't justify a series of costly new taxes on residents who are already telling us they just can't afford it.
In an undertaking of this size, Ontarians must be given the opportunity to have their say. I call on the Premier to take her plan to the people, and let them decide if they trust this government with another $50-billion of their hard-earned money.
Doug Ford is a Toronto city councillor.