Toronto Mayor David Miller has not given up in his quest for the federal government to hand over one cent of the GST that is collected within the city. Miller's insistence upon receiving the cash is consistent with what is defined as his mayoralty--a constant begging for money from other levels of government while refusing to consider slashing the city's expenditures.
The Toronto mayor and his free spending council are not likely to see new funds from Ottawa or Queen's Park anytime soon.
The only response to come from Ottawa from the mayor's one cent campaign came from the Royal Canadian Mint, along with a bill for $47,680. According to the mint, both the words "one cent" and the likeness of the copper coin are subject to copyright and the city owes the mint for its usage during the campaign. The city of Toronto is disputing this silliness but it is certain that whatever the outcome of this brouhaha, it will end up costing the taxpayers some bucks (can't use the word "dollars"; that's probably copyrighted too).
Not only are the city mothers not likely to see their much sought after pennies anytime soon, but no additional money is likely to flow from Queen's Park in the near future. The mayor will press on with his quest for a municipal vehicle registration fee and a new land transfer tax. Miller's position has always been that Torontonians will gladly pay more in taxes for municipal services which don't, at least where I live, include replacing burnt out street lights. Miller's position is now bolstered by the results of last Wednesday's provincial election. According to the mayor, if those who live in Toronto were really against paying more in taxes, they wouldn't have voted to re-elect Dalton McGuinty and the Liberals in the numbers that they did. Chalk one up for the mayor.
Meanwhile, back to the small change. The idea of completely scrapping the one cent copper coin has been floated recently.
Other countries such as Australia and New Zealand have removed these coins from circulation. A recent poll taken in Canada showed that 63 per cent of small businesses such as restaurants, coffee shops and grocery stores would like to see the demise of the one cent coin while only 19 per cent of those questioned want the pennies to remain. In a poll of ordinary Canadians the numbers were closer; 42 per cent of consumers want to see the one cent coin relegated to the dustbin of history, while 33 per cent of respondents seem to have an attachment to the coin. If these polls are accurate, more people would like to see the penny taken out of circulation than kept around.
Okay, here we are; most Canadians want to get rid of the penny while David Miller continues to beg for them. We see by all of this that there is something that is rare in Canadian political scene, especially at the municipal level--a solution. Many Canadians who don't think that the value of the penny is greater than the added weight to carry them around simply throw them into a jar at home and watch them accumulate. It doesn't even seem worth the time to roll up the coins and take them to the bank to exchange for "real money". So they end up just sitting around collecting dust. The obvious solution is then to gather up these jars and assorted other containers and take them down to city hall and give them to the only person who really wants them--the mayor. It would really be something to see a parade of people going down to Miller's office and dropping off their thousands and thousands of pennies.
