How Is It That Every Level Of Our Governments (Federal, Provincial, Municipal) Run Deficits When Condoland Has Been BOOMING For Years ?

Once again let me preface this with the disclosure that my lack in formal education (“wrongly“) led me to believe that all of these “educated people” holding all of these high profile and high paying jobs were being paid to “professionally manage our (consumers) affairs and protect our (consumers) best interests“. I found Kevin O’Leary’s “Open Letter to the Premier of the Province of Ontario” most intellectually informative and I would recommend it as a “must read” for anyone, like me, “ill-informed” about what is actually going on with our tax dollars. I have to admit that I have ignored our politics and must bear the burden of this apparent “train wreck gone wild“! A short while back I was offended to read in the Toronto Star that our Mayor John Tory acknowledged that our Municipal Government for “the City of Toronto was in excess of $86 Million Dollars in the red and facing cuts to police and TTC in excess of $9 Million”! Does this equate to all the hype about our economy doing so well (just try to walk through any shopping area in the city and it’s wall to wall buyers!). It sure has people willing to spend and possibly that’s what all the hype is about. You see the bottom line boils down to fact that our city has failed to balance its books! We (taxpayers) hire and pay for highly educated people to manage the day to day affairs of governing this mega-city and I cannot remember a time when our books were in fact balanced. They actually seem no better or worse than when I got into Condoland back in the early 1980’s. And yet, since that time the City of Toronto, the Province of Ontario, and the Federal Government, not to mention lawyers and a huge infrastructure of related businesses have made out like bandits! I will refer you to an excellent piece of reporting by Toronto Life Magazine “Faulty Towers” in which it is reported that the Municipal Government generates in excess of $10 Million per high-rise condo tower” in Permit Fees alone! “For a typical 35-storey, 350-unit downtown high-rise condo, city coffers can pull in up to $8 million from the developer: that includes $200,000 in planning fees, $400,000 in building permits and $3 million in development charges (which are cheaper in Toronto than in most other GTA municipalities), plus up to $2.5 million for a Parks and Recreation levy and a Sectio.n 37 grant (which developers pay in exchange for increased density on their site, with funds earmarked for specific community improvements) that can run as high as $1.5 million“. . . . .Toronto Life . . . . “Faulty Towers”. These are not conventional tax income paid to our “employees” (starting with the Mayor and working down clean through the mail room) from some historic channel, the are “out of the clouds dollars for issuing building Permits“. All of this is great so far, until I hit that intellectual road block about the City (that’s us tax payers) being burdened with an $87 Million Deficit! And our Provincial Government from Condoland alone, see horrific revenues generated by all that employment in the construction industry, never mind all those businesses down the line! And the Federal Government does very well in the form of income taxes from all that employment as well as all that money being made by people flipping all those condo units (that’s hug tax bucks!). And I haven’t even mentioned the introduction of GST (“Goods and Services Tax” – 6%) on top of the price of condos (people will tell you that the tax is built into the price but the consumer is the one paying the price) and then the HST (“Blended Tax“) that took the GST up to 13% on top of the price of condos, and then a MTLTF (“Metro Toronto Land Transfer Tax“) slapping on an addition 1.5% roughly! And then yesterday I read in the Toronto Star that condo prices in Condoland (Toronto) are expected to increase by another $60 per square foot next year, and one of the key reason being quoted is “Development Charges“! All of these massive “cash cows” deliver over and above all other conventional cash streams available to our governments. So, my question is “how is it that with all this non-conventional money flow into all levels of government coffers, how is it that all levels of our government are saddled with huge deficits“? Can one of you “educated people” out there please educate me on this so I can pass your wisdom onto my global readers? In my opinion, if this is the best that our elected officials can do, then it is time for the rest of us to do something! I’ve been telling you for years about how screwed over consumer are being in Condoland, yet all of these governments, not to mention the obscene amount of money pulled out of Condoland by developers (Aura for example was 1,100,000+ square feet of residential condos according to Wickipedia, that sold on average around $800 per square foot . . $880,000,000.00) so you can see that everyone actually does make out like bandits! Except for the consumer who is the only one putting up all the money! I’m all for capitalism and for everyone making out like bandits! Hey, I’ve been a self-employed entrepreneur all of my life including when back when it was a “bad thing to be“! I just am repulsed by the systematic unsavoury manner by which the consumer ends up getting exploited at literally every step alone the way! And now, I’m looking at “Building Science” and discovering that highly educated professionals have been publishing meaningful Papers, informing us about a serious, possibly financial “Tsunami“ that could literally wipe out Condoland, and no-one has been listening! Read the Toronto Star article about the latest technology “Window Wall” linked here! So please people! Do the math here! Consumer put up all the money, get no protection at any stage along the way, and will be left holding the bag when the Building Science under pinning today’s Condo land, is “flawed logic” in its conception and worse in its delivery! I’m Charles      

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