The Villager

Mayor David Miller managed, with the help of Etobicoke councillor Mark Grimes, to pull out of the political tailspin he'd been stuck in since council voted to defer debate on the taxes back in July, and return to some semblance of control of his council with the passage of the taxes.

The Toronto Board of Trade and others in the business community, skeptical the city was as well-run as it could be, will have their questions answered by a panel of outside experts - a panel that Miller had until very recently refused to even consider letting look at the city's books.

Even the de facto losers in this debate, the right-wing opposition led by councillors Denzil Minnan-Wong and Karen Stintz, can claim some level of victory: in both the creation of the aforementioned panel, which speaks to their own suspicion about laxity in the city's finances, and in sheer street cred they've garnered in certain circles as right-wing critics of the left-wing government at city hall.

It's harder to spin victory for the biggest player in this fight: the 2.5 million people who live here in Toronto. In 2007, we've lost library service and community centre access, are about to bear a TTC fare hike and may soon be trudging through snowy streets that might otherwise have been properly plowed.

And next year, there will be more. Those of us staying put won't pay the land transfer tax, but many of us will pay the vehicle registration tax. On their own, neither of those taxes are so terrible, and the amendments that council approved, among other things protecting first-time buyers of modestly priced homes, make them even less so. But those same provisions also mean the new taxes won't do much good for the city's budget crisis. Far from bringing in $356 million, next year the city will only rake in about $175 million.

That means that next year's projected shortfall will be about $239 million; an amount that, without other measures, would lead to a 12 per cent property tax hike. Of course, it won't be that high.

The increase will be reduced by an amount depending upon the amount of cash Miller can wheedle out of the provincial government and the amount of cuts the budget committee can find. It may even find itself hovering in the range of the rate of inflation.

In other words, it will be a budget year much like any other, with all the brinksmanship and inter-governmental tension that implies. Too late to make a difference, the provincial panel looking at the best way to undo the Mike Harris and Bob Rae-era downloading will report on how much of the estimated $700 million in former provincial costs the city now bears should be reversed.

That might provide a pretext for a last-minute, one-time rescue and some manageable repayment schedule in future years. Or, it might - like many a provincial panel in years gone by - lead to a report that sits on a shelf gathering dust.

But for the people of Toronto, the upshot of this debate is that one year soon, the taxes we are paying now might lead to a better city, not one that sees services flat-lined or diminishing.

If that's a victory for the people, it's a slim one. ~ Read David Nickle's blog: http://www.blogs.insidetoronto.com/cityhall/