On Saturday, Toronto Budget Chief Shelley Carroll defended sending money down the toilet.
She was participating in a budget town hall on NEWSTALK1010.
A caller named David wanted to know why the city keeps its contracting exclusive to a cozy, short list of preferred contractors.
Toronto’s bylaw officers will no longer crack down on cannabis stores that are operating illegally.
The head of Toronto’s licensing department, Carleton Grant, made it clear during Wednesday’s budget committee meeting that due to the lack of funding and dangers of dealing with criminal activity surrounding these storefronts, bylaw officers are “no longer effective” in stifling these shops from running.
In 2018, the city received just shy of $9 million in provincial funding, through the Ontario Cannabis Legalization implementation Fund (OCLIF), to crack down on dispensaries selling products to customers without a licence. In 2024, that funding ran out.
Welcome to Chowtown where criminals rule.
Inflation in Canada might be back down below 3%, but at Toronto City Hall, they haven’t gotten the memo. Mayor Olivia Chow and her hand-picked budget chief, Shelley Carroll, announced a combined tax hike for homeowners of 6.9%.
That’s 5.4% for the property tax increase, plus 1.5% for the city building fund.
Toronto’s proposed 2025 budget includes a 6.9 per cent property tax hike, with Mayor Olivia Chow promising the revenue it raises will enable critical investments in libraries, police, transit, housing and other vital services.
The budget will deliver “change in Torontonians’ lives today,” Chow told reporters inside city hall Monday morning alongside budget chief Coun. Shelley Carroll to launch this year’s budget process.
The 6.9 per cent figure includes a new 5.4 per cent hike, plus a 1.5 per cent increase to the city building fund dedicated to capital expenditures for transit and housing.
One Term Chow.
The proposed 2025 budget for Toronto, and whether it will lead to another huge property tax hike, will be unveiled Monday as the affordability crisis chips away at people’s pocketbooks.
Canada’s Top Job Market Is Saskatoon, Toronto Ranks Near Worst: BMO
Toronto is out and Saskatoon is in—at least for those looking for a robust job market. That’s the take from BMO’s latest labor market rankings of Canada’s 33 largest cities. The country added tens of thousands of jobs, but surging population growth means some cities did worse than others. Places like Toronto saw a sharp erosion of its labor market as its population outpaced its ability to create jobs. More affordable cities like Saskatoon maintained robust population growth, but managed to grow its labor market faster—probably since shelter costs didn’t consume its economy.
Toronto unemployment rises to 8.4% https://t.co/3MU8A8NrgU pic.twitter.com/m57hJXWQvN
— Daniel Foch (@daniel_foch) January 11, 2025
A congestion charge, a long-debated idea in North America, has finally come into effect in New York City and is being praised by experts who say Toronto could benefit from a similar approach .
On Sunday, New York was the first U.S. city to adopt the system after years of studies and delays, joining the likes of London, Stockholm and Singapore which have seen lasting traffic reductions since implementing congestion charges.
One more reason to move out of Toronto.
Anita Dressler expressed the wrong opinion and was fired by the City of Toronto.
The loss of income doesn’t bother her – she was a volunteer.
Dressler does and doesn’t like to talk about her six decades or so of volunteer work. She cherishes the connections she’s made and loves knowing she’s helped many people, but hates to think she’d be seen as a braggart.
Chairman Chow and her band of commie racists have to go.
Toronto real estate just got another sign that it entered one of its roughest markets ever. Equifax data shows the Greater Toronto mortgage delinquency rate climbed again in Q2 2024. Just two years after hitting a record low, the rate is now climbing at one of the most aggressive paces in history, hitting a 9 year high in the latest data.
This ought to really take off after Chairman Chow announces her property tax increase.
The City of Toronto finds itself at a crossroads – but the issues at play go far beyond bike lanes or traffic congestion.
For decades, a debate has been simmering about the very essence of Canada’s biggest city: who does Toronto serve, and what kind of city can it become? And at the heart of this debate lies a fundamental clash of visions on urban mobility – and ultimately, the city’s very purpose.
That conversation began in earnest in the 1950s, a time when entire neighbourhoods in cities across the world were razed to make way for highways and expressways. Cities faced a choice: would they follow Robert Moses’s vision, prioritizing cars, or Jane Jacobs’s vision, designing cities for people?
Urban planners seldom allow reality to cloud their vision.
For decades, the rusting, weathered Live Eye car has hung over Queen Street West.
Its wheels have spun along with the wheels of time, watching over the endless evolution of one of Toronto’s most iconic streets. Storefronts have changed. Watering holes have opened and closed. Condos have gone up, and up, and up.
The Live Eye car has remained.
Take a guess …
#WATCH: New Years in Downtown Toronto was lit last night pic.twitter.com/wHmCa3s107
— 6ixBuzzTV (@6ixbuzztv) January 1, 2025
The message behind this speed camera vandalism is hard to miss. And it isn’t good
When do acts of vandalism become performance art?
Like, how many times was “Kilroy was here” scrawled on walls before it became more than simple graffiti? Or how many Banksy murals appeared before he became something more than just another tagger?
It’s a question you might ask after learning that the automated speed camera on Parkside Drive has been decapitated for the third time in two months.
It was another year of living stupidly.
In Toronto and hereabouts.
A city council that went far left-away and a Queen’s Park dictatorship that willy-nilly took away traditional municipal powers. Local pols chafed; the premier paid no mind.
Carjackings became the crime of massive choice, often with juvie-proof teens at the wheel. Catch me if you can nyah-nyah-nyah. But offenders were still mostly dumb as a sack of hammers. Cops too, on occasion.
Jeff Steinman doesn’t know what else he can do to try and sell his condo after lowering the price by almost $135,000.
“Interest in the unit has been very low,” Steinman said. “I’ve had zero offers and it’s been on the market since the summer.”
In July, the Star spoke to Steinman about the difficulties he faced selling his downtown Toronto condo, highly unusual for a one-bedroom apartment on Charlotte Street, close to Spadina Avenue and Adelaide Street West, in a 13-storey boutique building close to theatres, TIFF Bell Lightbox, sports stadiums, and multiple transit lines.
Toronto has seen a stark spike in youth crime rates in 2024 — with almost every metric for serious gun violence up significantly.
From a 15-year-old who was gunned down outside a west-end plaza just shy of his first week in Grade 11, to a 14-year-old boy facing first-degree murder charges for opening fire on a community gathering at an Etobicoke school, killing two — scenes of young people being both victims and perpetrators of violent crime are playing out on city streets all too often.
In all, 13 people under 18 have been charged with homicide so far this year, up from just three in 2023, according to police. Over the same period, the number of young people charged with firearms offences has shot up more than 50 per cent.
The usual “root causes”. Not enough money, not enough jobs for yutes.
