It’s important to note that I do not want to change anything that is good about Toronto. We all know that this is a wonderful city with great services and people places, and that it is one of the nicest cities in the world for living and working.
That’s working and that doesn’t need to be changed.
What needs to be changed is the way city council manages money so that our services are cut back and we have to pay more taxes for less return on our investment each year.
When we call the website, “Let’s change Toronto”, we are asking you to reduce and eliminate Toronto’s debt so that we can again start paying for the city services we have lost. We also need to change things financially about the way city council handles budgeting so that there are no new additional taxes added to your already heavy tax burden.
Let’s change those things about our Toronto. We’re “People’s City”, and “Toronto the Good”. Join me in bringing those things back to us by electing me to reduce and eventually eliminate our debt. Instead of paying hundreds of millions of dollars every year on debt interest, let’s pay it to keep our swimming pools open, to keep our streets in good repair, to help create more affordable housing, to increase the numbers of skating rink surfaces needed for our kids learning figure skating and ice hockey, to keep our schools open, and to reduce violent crime…and a thousand other things we can’t do now because there isn’t enough money left over after the deficit carrying charges are paid.
One change…changing how city council decides where to spend our tax dollars…can be a very good change.
The reality is that Toronto may go a long way to general health and a bright, prosperous future by following a novel two-pronged approach. Both aspects of this approach have far-reaching consequences that can deliver beneficial changes to the city in ways and with speed that (compared to the snail’s pace of non-progress we have been experiencing for the past 60 years or so) we will consider nothing short of amazing and have us glowing with pride at how well we’re doing.
They are:
- Create new wealth for a considered development of the city and well-being of Toronto’s citizenry.
- Change the nature of the method of council meetings and decision-making at city hall.
Both have aspects that go hand in hand. Both require a radical departure from the way things are now done in city government, and both embrace the future as a vision of how Toronto can be when it is at its best.
Mark State
2010 Toronto Mayoralty Candidate
vote.mark.state@cia.com
416-915-5084
twitter.com/ChangingToronto
