Toronto, – According to the latest findings from Toronto’s small business community, “The Stronger City of Toronto for a Stronger Ontario Act” has not lived up to its 2007 billing. The Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) has released a report today indicating that the City of Toronto Act, which granted Toronto broad powers to tax and regulate, has been a disservice to Torontonians by hurting its job-creating sector: small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
CFIB vice president legislative affairs, Judith Andrew says that the unprecedented amount of autonomy this Act has afforded City of Toronto, resulted quickly in the implementation of two of eight proposed taxes (municipal land transfer tax and municipal personal vehicle tax), additional users fees (e.g. garbage collection) and new regulations (e.g. emissions reporting, plastic bags). “Rather than making Toronto a better place to do business, the legislation leaves businesses cold,” she noted.
CFIB’s study gives a disturbing appraisal of the actual impact of the legislation. In terms of economic growth, 74 per cent of respondents feel that the City of Toronto Act has not transformed Toronto into a better place to do business, while 83 per cent believe that the Act has not encouraged job creation nor helped attract investment to the city. As far as political accountability is concerned, 82 per cent of respondents feel that the Act has not made the mayor and city councillors more responsible to the public. 85 per cent disagree that the delivery and quality of services has improved. 79 per cent say that city hall is not doing a better job controlling spending. Taxation and regulation are believed to have worsened according to 86 per cent and 77 per cent of respondents, respectively. These findings pre-date the recent civic strike that understandably has left most Torontonians with an even more jaundiced view of Toronto’s effectiveness.
“Clearly the small business community has been adversely affected by the implementation of the City of Toronto Act and there’s no end of the grief in sight,” said Plamen Petkov, a senior policy analyst with CFIB, adding that “with over 90 per cent of the businesses surveyed anticipating further tax and compliance constraints as a result of this Act, many are seriously considering relocating their business to surrounding, more business-friendly areas.”
The study follows up a 2006 CFIB report, No City of Toronto Style Act for Us,” Say Municipal Leaders and CFIB’s Members, which showed Ontario’s mayors were sceptical about the Toronto Act experiment, being overwhelmingly against new municipal revenue-raising and regulatory powers. The present analysis is also consistent with a 2007 CFIB report, Toronto Taxes: “Not a Penny More!” which showed the opinions of Toronto small business owners and the general public lined up in opposition to new City Taxes, in their lack of confidence in City Hall, and in their negative predictions for the legislation.
Citing its new report as a call to action, CFIB would like to see this experimental legislation given serious second thought in the mandatory review, now underway. “As it stands, this review is nothing more than a politically expedient formality,” charged Andrew.
To view the full report, An Experiment Gone Wrong: Results of CFIB Member Survey on the City of Toronto Act, go to HYPERLINK "http://www.cfib.ca/legis/ontario/" [url=http://www.cfib.ca/legis/ontario/]http://www.cfib.ca/legis/ontario/[/url].
To arrange an interview, contact Adam Miller or Meghan Carrington at 416-222-8022.
