Prueba del sistema

Many of the problems of Greater To ronto today are similar to those that existed in Metropolitan To ronto in 1953. We are still dealing with boundary anomalies, fragmentation issues, and difficult infrastru c t u re decisions. But there a re stark new realities facing us today. The GTA’s challenge is to reinvent itself into a city-region that is economically and socially sustainable in today’s global context.

Change in the GTA is urgently needed and, in many cases, long overdue. Our economic growth is flagging. Inequities in our taxation system are deepening and, combined with an eroding tax base, are threatening the region’s economic stability. Our infrastructure is outdated and is not keeping pace with the competitive needs of business and industry. Current urban development patterns

For tourists we will continue to be a magnetic attraction, and for immigrants a place to be greeted, sheltered, and off e red a future .

We will be a region made up of healthy, thriving communities which off e r choice and accessibility through a mix of housing, employment, re c re a t i o n , and entertainment. Growth will be balanced with the conservation and enhancement of rural landscapes, agriculture, cultural and heritage re s o u rc e s , and the enviro n m e n t .

The government stru c t u re for Greater To ronto will allow us to continue as a model for metropolitan areas around the world.

In short, Greater To ronto will be the place where people and businesses that can choose to be anywhere, choose to be.

35 are too costly and inefficient to be left unchecked. Municipal governments have

neither the authority nor the capacity to deliver services efficiently. And our government structures are increasingly ill-equipped to meet the competitive challenges facing the city-region.

An Inequitable and Eroding Tax Base

Two pressing finance problems threaten the economic stability of Gre a t e r To ronto. The first is the erosion of the pro p e rty tax base as a result of assessment appeals. The second is the inequity between pro p e rty taxes paid by businesses in Metro To ronto and those paid by businesses elsewhere in the city-re g i o n .

A dramatic rise in assessment appeals is eroding the property tax base. For municipalities across the region, this has led to significant losses in their assessment bases. In Metro Toronto alone the assessment base has dropped four percent in the last four years. Although Metro’s appeal problem is more extreme than elsewhere in the GTA, the problem is growing outside Metro as the base becomes more outdated.

As the property tax base shrinks, service cuts and/or tax hikes are the inevitable result. Service cutbacks, because they affect our quality of life, and higher tax rates, because they discourage investment, are damaging to the GTA’s business environment and make it less competitive compared to other major metropolitan centres around the world. The property tax gap is already deterring businesses from locating in Metro Toronto and continued erosion of the tax base can only diminish the region’s competitiveness further.

Outdated Infrastructure

Businesses today are operating in a new competitive environment where timely movement of goods and services is essential. The GTA’s infrastructure is aging and not keeping pace with the needs of many manufacturers and service businesses whose competitive advantage is tied to the existence of a modern, accessible, and reliable network of roads, rail, and air transportation.

Inefficient Urban Development Patterns

The 1980s pattern of low-density land use is now simply too expensive to sustain — in economic, environmental, and social terms. We can no longer afford the higher infrastructure costs associated with widespread low-density development, nor can we afford to under-utilize urban land and existing i n f r a s t ru c t u re while paying for expensive new infrastru c t u re. Incre a s i n g commuter dependency on cars at the expense of our transit system is also costly

The Barriers

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and impractical. In addition, we all pay for the other less obvious costs associated with inefficient land use — the reduced quality of life that comes with more traffic congestion, declining air quality, and the loss of greenspace and prime agricultural land.

Outdated Legislation

Competitive pre s s u res, coupled with fiscal constraints, demand that g o v e rnments every w h e re adopt more innovative approaches to delivering services. Municipalities must engage in more entrepreneurial service delivery, either by providing services more cost-efficiently themselves or by contracting out services where there are demonstrated overall advantages to doing so.

The Municipal Act, which dates back to 1849, is a relic of a past when municipalities were smaller, lacked sufficient resources to manage their own affairs, and were in need of detailed and restrictive legislation to guide them.

This and other outdated legislation prevents municipalities from developing a more entrepreneurial and cost-effective approach to delivering services.

Fragmented Economic Development

G reater To ro n t o ’s profile is diminished by its fragmented economic development efforts. Twenty-five of the GTA’s municipalities are currently engaged in economic development activities, ranging from small business incubators to international marketing campaigns. There is no cohesive marketing f o rce for attracting business, promoting local business products and capabilities in i n t e rnational markets, or servicing them well so that they remain and prosper in the GTA.

Economic development pursued in so many places and in so many ways works against the GTA’s interests as a whole and prevents us from re p resenting re g i o n a l , as well as provincial, interests effectively with a single and strong voice.

Inadequate Governance Structure

People in the GTA feel they are over-governed. Services are provided by the federal and provincial governments, five regional governments, 30 are a municipalities, 17 school boards, and countless special purpose bodies. The multiplicity of governing authorities, each with its own administrative structures and processes but with overlapping mandates, has led to jurisdictional gridlock in many areas.

37 Greater Toronto’s regional governments are divided, uncoordinated, and

lack the collective sense of purpose needed to address critical region-wide issues.

A comprehensive transportation plan for the GTA has not been developed since the mid-seventies and disputes erupt frequently between regions over water, roads, sewers, and garbage disposal. Meanwhile, various provincial government departments involved in GTA-related approvals work at cross-purposes, stalling investment decisions worth billions of dollars. In an era of fiscal constraint and intense global competition, the costs associated with this level of inefficiency are no longer tolerable.

Achieving our vision for Greater To ronto depends on our ability to overcome these barriers. Failure to do so will be costly: the region’s economic competitiveness and quality of life will decline; the property tax crisis will continue to wear away at our tax base, threatening our ability to pay for needed services and discouraging business growth in the region; urban development will proceed in unsustainable and undesirable directions; and we will have failed to ensure that our residents receive the highest quality services at the lowest possible cost.

Although many of the problems addressed in this report are not new, they have grown more pressing now that we face new competitive realities and unprecedented fiscal constraints. Our metropolis has been described as “North America’s most livable international city. ”^{1 1} Without change, we will be hard -p ressed to hold on to those qualities that have made us great and we will be poorly positioned to seize opportunities for securing a more prosperous future.

T h e

O p p o rt u n i t i e s

11 This view was expressed in our discussions with U.S. based international business location firms.