CITY HALL: Mayor boasts exciting year to come for Toronto
Miller delivers annual State of the City Address
Billing himself as a "tax cutter," Mayor David Miller boasted to Toronto business leaders about council's tax cuts to small businesses this year, laid out for them his vision for an inclusive, green and wealthy 21st-century city and urged them to join him in a campaign to ban handgun ownership in Canada.
"The law must be changed and we have to continue to work with American mayors to stop the flow of guns across the border into Canada," said Miller in his fifth annual State of the City Address before the membership of the Toronto Board of Trade on Wednesday, April 9 at the Delta Toronto East hotel.
"This is just one more area where cities can, must and are leading. I'm incredibly proud to say that our Toronto, your Toronto, is that leader. We're leaders on the environment, we're leaders in addressing gun crime and we're leaders in prosperity," he said.
Miller was upbeat in his speech, while acknowledging that he and the city had come through an undeniably difficult year.
Over the past year, Miller fought with some of his councillors over the imposition of two controversial new taxes, on land transfers and vehicle registration, a fight that for several months also put Miller at odds with the Toronto Board of Trade and the Toronto Real Estate Board, both of whom initially opposed the land transfer tax.
Miller didn't apologize for the disagreement.
He told the board that the city had "turned the corner."
"As I stand here today, I can proudly say that we've made some critical decisions - some of them difficult - that have helped put Toronto on the path to a prosperous future. After 10 years of focusing on survival, we have turned the corner to speak about Toronto's success."
Miller pointed out that this year's operating budget was introduced balanced in early January. And he made a point of noting council's decision to create a new tax class for small businesses - effectively delivering that class a 1.2 per cent property tax cut in this year's budget.
"Let me repeat that: we're cutting taxes for small businesses," Miller said. "Not what you were expecting to hear, was it? David Miller - tax cutter."
Miller also spoke at length about the city's agenda for prosperity - a far-reaching plan for economic development and city-building that he unveiled earlier this year.
The agenda sets out various goals in four so-called pillars, dealing with traditional economic development issues such as attracting business and promoting Toronto internationally, but also sets goals for social inclusion of at-risk communities and building the city's creative potential.
And he pledged that during next week's trade mission to China, he would raise human rights issues.
"The mission will give me an opportunity to speak out on human rights and conditions in Tibet where appropriate," he said. "China is looking to Canada for leadership on the issues of climate change and the environment."
As has become the tradition over these luncheons, Miller faced questions from representatives of the board and the North York, Scarborough and Etobicoke Chambers of Commerce. He dealt with several issues there, including the city's labour relations strategy going into negotiations with public sector workers.
"Our unions have to understand this is not a year for generosity - it's a year for fairness," Miller said. "That's our goal in the settlements; to be fair."
And he was asked about transportation infrastructure, and whether he would support sending a new subway out to Scarborough. Miller said the Transit City light rail network was a more realistic and cost-effective approach to public transit.
"Light rail transit modern street cars serve the kinds of densities that Scarborough has very efficiently and effectively, and can be built at a 10th of the cost of subways," he said.
"So we can have a network of light rail all around Toronto for what it would cost to build one subway line. I think from a business perspective that's efficient and effective."
Board of Trade President Carol Wilding had a mixed reaction to the speech.
"Well I'd say as a start tax cutting isn't a bad motto from a business community perspective. We'd like to see a lot more of that particularly around rebalancing the property taxes. If that's a sign of things to come we'd certainly like to see that extended to the property tax arena."
She said that the mayor needs to move more quickly on economic development matters.
"There are some references to Toronto but we need to talk about Toronto and the region," she said. "It's very much a global competitiveness arena that we're looking at. We can't just talk about Toronto only. We need to move faster on that. While we hear that we're leading on the green, I don't think we're yet leading on the economic front."
