Public Governance and Accountability - Op Eds

Toronto city council has just approved an extra increase in property taxes — another 1.0 per cent in 2020 and 2021 on top of a previously approved 0.5 per cent hike, and a full 1.5 per cent for four years starting in 2022. Mayor John Tory, previously a staunch supporter of holding the line on property taxes, pushed it. The vote went 22-3 in favour — a convincing margin considering most politicians hate to vote for higher taxes. Even many conservative commentators praised the hike as necessary to support social services and better infrastructure. Which makes me wonder: how many on council, in the media, or the city at large know anything about Toronto’s fiscal numbers? Does anyone?

Here’s a test. What was the City of Toronto’s…

Senator Diane Bellemare has launched an inquiry into revising the Bank of Canada Act to add full employment to the bank’s mandate. Senator Bellemare’s inquiry appears to reflect a view that the bank’s current framework – expressed in periodic agreements with the Parliament of Canada – of pursuing 2-per-cent inflation is deficient, and that requiring the bank to pursue an explicit goal related to jobs would improve it.

An alternative take on the situation is that the current framework is a sensible and highly successful way for the bank to pursue its existing mandate – which is in the Bank of Canada Act and already refers, among other goals, to mitigating fluctuations in employment and promoting the economic and…

The 1996 Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples made prominent reference to a 1613 treaty between the Dutch and Mohawk: “Three beads of wampum separating the two purple rows symbolize peace, friendship and respect. The two rows of purple are two vessels travelling down the same river together. One, a birch bark canoe, is for the Indian people, their laws, their customs, and their ways. The other, a ship, is for the white people and their laws, their customs and their ways. We shall each travel the river together, side by side, but in our own boat.”

The intent of much Canadian Indigenous policy since 1996 has been to "strengthen the canoe.” Overall, this has been a worthy exercise in the pursuit of reconciliation with those…

This week’s review of the Ontario government’s pre-election financial report from the provincial Auditor-General reconfirmed what The Globe and Mail reported last weekend: The government is using an accounting trick to shrink its reported deficit and debt. It is hiding the cost of borrowing to subsidize electricity prices over the next few years by inventing an “asset” – revenue from the higher prices Ontario’s electricity consumers will pay later on – to keep the borrowing from showing in the government’s bottom line.

Auditor-General Bonnie Lysyk’s review concludes that the pre-election report is not a reasonable presentation of Ontario’s finances. Her concerns deserve wide attention – not just in Ontario, but…

As of April 12, municipalities in Ontario will be able to implement inclusionary zoning, allowing them to require affordable housing units in residential developments. The province’s willingness to grant municipalities this authority reflects its broader commitment to modernizing Ontario’s planning regime. But one relic of this old regime remains: Section 37 of Ontario’s Planning Act. As the province continues to overhaul its planning legislation, it is time to revisit Section 37 and either repeal it or significantly amend it.

Section 37 allows municipalities to secure “benefits” from developers in return for allowing buildings to exceed height and density restrictions. As I note in a recent report for the C.D. Howe Institute,…