Imagine crying poor while lighting money on fire at the same time. That seems to be Toronto Mayor John Tory’s favourite pastime these days.
He recently asked Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Ontario Premier Doug Ford for a cool $1.5 billion to help Toronto balance its operating budget for this year. That’s no small ask. It’s more than 11 per cent of the city’s budget from 2019.
It would be easy to use COVID-19 as an excuse for the city’s financial woes heading into 2021, but the financial accountability office of Ontario recently released a report stating that the province’s “municipalities are projected to run a combined budget surplus of $6.0 billion in 2021.”
