Late last month the city of Toronto unveiled its new branding. The brand consists of two words, "Toronto unlimited" and is accompanied by a logo that looks like a sideways "P". Rumour has it that the logo is supposed to be a "T" and an "O" running together.
"Toronto Unlimited" came into being after 13 months of work that included 14 focus groups being held in three different countries. The cost of obtaining Toronto’s new brand was a cool $4 million that, as we all know after last Saturday’s Live 8 concerts, could feed a whole lot of starving african children.
Supposedly the word "unlimited" is meant to refer to the unlimited possibilities that Canada’s largest city has to offer. But unlike the "I love NY" slogan, it doesn’t exactly exude anything that is positive. You have to read between the lines (or in this case, between the two words) to find any positive meaning. But as everyone who lives in Toronto knows, there are many unlimited negatives about the city that its brand new slogan could also be referring to.
Taxes unlimited
Unlike federal and provincial taxes, whether we will be paying more in business or property taxes next year is never an issue in Toronto. The only question that is on everyone’s mind is the amount of the next year’s increase. The free spending city council never feels the need to live within their means or yikes, try to balance the budget. Every year council brings out the doom and gloom scenario that these taxes will increase by 10 or 20 per cent; then they reduce the increase to 3 per cent while the sheeple breathe sighs of relief and businesses make plans to move to the 905 area. The amount of taxes that Toronto residents and businesses are forced to pay is, truly unlimited.
Homelessness unlimited
While the experience of other major cities and mere logic suggest that in order to help get the homeless off of the streets and into places where they can be helped we need to know how many people we are dealing with, Toronto politicos again refused to count the numbers of those who are living on our streets. Council will continue to leave people living on sidewalks and in parks while they wait for other levels of government to come in and build housing for all of them. as we can’t know how many homeless there are, we can say that there numbers are unlimited. It sure seems that way in certain areas of the city.
Whining unlimited
Mayor David Miller began his term by whining and complaining that other levels of government aren’t giving his city enough money to properly run Toronto. His point has some validity but it is lost as a result of his refusal to take any responsibility for bringing his own budget under control. No matter what the provincial and federal governments give to Toronto in the future it will never be enough. We will continue to hear unlimited whining and begging from Toronto’s Chief Panhandler.
Gridlock unlimited
Miller and the city have now scored a portion of gasoline taxes, but council will apply all of it to public transit and not roads. Gridlock in and around the city will continue to worsen. Of course public transit buses and streetcars will be caught in this ever increasing gridlock, causing more people to dump public transit in favour of driving. This fact is of no concern to the car-hating councillors who will not do anything to ease gridlock of those right wing SUV drivers.
Bike lanes unlimited
Many of those on city council will not rest until every street in the city has bicycle lanes. Many of the streets that have lost two lanes of traffic to bike lanes are very seldom used by cyclists. Not adding additional bike lanes would, of course ease some of the gridlock which truly is "unlimited".
Union settlements unlimited
David Miller came to power not even attempting to hide his love of and support for unions. at the time of this writing, we are looking at a possible strike of outside workers on Friday. While most of these workers will not be missed, the non collection of garbage will be a real problem. But many Toronto residents are not overly concerned, knowing that the union-friendly mayor will divert a strike by giving his union buddies everything they want. Miller’s support for the unions and their settlements is "unlimited".
When you look at everything, perhaps the new branding is not too bad after all.
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