Dear Hon. Jim Flaherty and Hon. John Baird:
Please, before you give any money to Mayor David Miller for the City of Toronto, put strict conditions on it because of Mayor Miller's partisan and spendthrift ways.
While he is getting a lot of press for his claims that he as Mayor is going to freeze his pay and office expenses in the city's operating budget, he neglects to discuss the $2.9 million he slipped into the city's capital budget to renovate his office!
Then there is the over $50 million in yearly grants to non-profit groups which I am sure has a lot of waste and doesn't include a lot of the money they give to non-profit groups circumventing the grants committee and grants process entirely.
Two examples I am aware of on how they circument the proper process is all the money given to the extremist Toronto Environmental Alliance through the Toronto Atmospheric fund, and the almost $1/2 million given every year to the Federation of Metro Tenants Associations, an NDP front group, through the Tenant Defence Fund, for questionable or very poor duplicate services.
Nevermind, that what the city considers to be accountability is to get these and all recipients of grants to write reports about themselves about how wisely taxpayers money was used by them.
I wonder how much more money is wasted this way that the public will never find out about?
So before you give any money to the City of Toronto, force an independent forensic audit of the city, and the money they apparently funnel to partisan and questionable "organizations" for political purposes that provide little or no useful practical services to residents.
Mike Edwards
Toronto
