by arthur Weinreb, associate Editor,
april 15, 2004
Toronto City Council has finally allegedly balanced their budget. Included in arriving at the city’s $6.7 billion operating budget is a 3 percent increase in property taxes and business tax hike of 1.5 percent.
Businesses, already being hit by high taxes have been leaving Toronto for the outer burbs for years and this year’s increase is likely to quicken the flow. Considering that the downtown core was hit hard last year with SaRS, Mad Cow Disease and the august power blackout, an increase in business taxes at this particular time would not be, as convicted felon Martha Stewart might say, a good thing.
and a 3 percent property tax is nothing to write home about either. although 3 percent does not seem like a huge increase it will be painful for many senior citizens that own their own homes and are on a fixed income. User fees in many areas have also increased, affecting whom those increases always affect, the poor and the elderly.
So you would think that the Toronto Star, the newspaper that purports to always speak up for the poor, the elderly, the unemployed, the disabled the visible minorities; the Victim’s Daily, would be critical of at least most of these increases in taxes and user fees. Think again.
The headline in an article written by the Star’s City Hall Bureau Chief, Vanessa Lu, says it all--"Budget blues virtually disappear". It seems the paper’s bureau chief is reserving her sympathies for the paper’s left wing buddies on Toronto City Council. all her sympathies go to the over-pampered politicians who had to work so hard to balance their budget. Oh well, the seniors will probably die soon anyway. and the poor? The hell with them.
So typically Canadian
The Stanley Cup playoffs started last week and almost all of the Toronto media hyped up the fact that the Leafs were in the playoffs. This was especially noticeable on television news where inevitably the lead story was showing hockey fans with their faces painted blue and white, yelling and screaming about how the Leafs, who last won the playoffs in 1967, were going to win the Cup this year.
although there is some genuine excitement, there is no doubt that a lot of this hype was generated by the media. Even though there is no shortage of violent crime stories, an ongoing scandal in Ottawa and raging battles in Iraq, the news is led by hockey fans in a sports bar yelling that the Leafs are going to win.
and what did the Leafs do to deserve all this excitement? Out of 30 teams in the National Hockey League, the Toronto Maple Leafs finished in the top 16, thus winning a birth in the playoffs. The playoffs, commonly referred to as the NHL’s second season, consist of four rounds. Teams that get knocked out in the first round share more in common with those teams that never made the playoffs than the eventual Stanley Cup winner. It is understandable for fans to get excited when their team reaches the finals or even the semi-finals, but the media-generated hype before the team even plays its first game seems a little much.
The prominence that the Toronto media gives to the Leafs before and so early on during the playoffs feeds the image of mediocrity that many have of Canada. Celebrating just making the playoffs is typical of this "it’s an honour just to be nominated" mentality that is so pervasive in this country.
and if the Leafs happen to win Lord Stanely’s Cup or at least make the finals, it could be over two months of these rah-rah scenes leading off the news. Enough is enough.
Unreliable Poll
On april 11, a Leger-Sun poll was released showing what residents of Toronto thought was the biggest issue facing the city of Toronto. Forty-two percent of the 502 respondents indicated that crime was the most important issue, much greater than the second place category (high taxes) that was chosen by only 17 per cent of those who were polled.
The poll was conducted between March 29 and april 5. During that period of time, the body of 9-year-old Cecilia Zhang was found and convicted pedophile, Douglas David Moore had committed suicide and been found to have been a person of interest in the death of Rene Charlebois and in the disappearance of Robert Grewal, 20 and Joseph Manchisi, 22 (a body discovered in Quebec was later identified as Grewal’s).
The high profile nature of these crimes, especially the murder of Cecelia who most were hoping would be found alive, couldn’t help but skewer the poll. Had the poll been conducted at a time when emotions were not running so high, a smaller percentage of respondents would have chosen crime as the number one issue. When the media is reporting on this poll, they should always indicate (as some sources do) that it was taken in a time of high emotional feelings about crime.