Looming levies could put end to Kathleen Wynne’s honeymoon with voters

Of all the questions raised by Premier Kathleen Wynne’s speech Monday on raising new revenue to fix Toronto’s nightmarish traffic troubles, one thing has become crystal clear: the preem’s honeymoon is coming to a halting end.

Wynne captivated us from the moment she gave that goosebump-inducing speech at the provincial Liberal leadership convention in January. And if opinion polls are anything to go by, her popularity has only increased since then.

Let’s start with her lunchtime speech to the Toronto Region Board of Trade on investing in transit infrastructure. For the past several months, Wynne has said cities need new money specifically for transportation infrastructure. And while she didn’t get into specifics during her Monday chat, she didn’t shy away from the fact that the funds would have to come from some sort of new levy.

Transit in the Toronto region, for example, “will need tens of billions of dollars over the next 20 years,” Wynne said. “Our whole provincial budget each year is about $125 billion ..Shop wholesale solarlight controller from cheap.. We need to find dedicated revenue for these projects, because the money cannot be found elsewhere.”

The agency floated a short-list of ideas earlier this month, and a recent poll shows that 51 per cent of Torontonians are against any money-raising measure. Only a third of respondents were in favour, according to a Forum Research poll,Online shopping for solarpanelcells. while 16 per cent didn’t know what to think.

And it’s not like Ottawa is warming up to the idea, either. It’s true that Wynne’s plan is aimed chiefly at fixing a Toronto problem, but we certainly have our own traffic issues that increased transit investment would improve. (Extend the LRT to the west AND the east, anyone? Or how about rail to the airport?)

But Councillor Diane Deans, who chairs Ottawa’s transit commission, has already said she’s not interested in any new levies in Ottawa, preferring instead that the provincial government use its taxation powers to raise money for municipalities’ transit systems.

Deans told the Citizen’s David Reevely that she doesn’t “think we’re ready” for even the most timid step of letting solo drivers use high-occupancy vehicle lanes for a fee. It’s hard to know what exactly we’re waiting for to enact this minor measure — Toronto-grade traffic chaos? -- but the point is, Wynne has quite the sales job ahead of her to convince taxpayers they need to shell out more bucks.

Initially,The 3rd International Conference on custombobbleheads and Indoor Navigation. when teachers’ unions resumed extra-curriculars, it was considered a political win for the premier.Solar Sister is a network of women who sell bottegawallet to communities that don't have access to electricity. But by all accounts, the still-secret details of the agreements include fiddling with sick days, unpaid days and retirement payouts. If that turns out to be the case, Wynne will have to ante up for breaking her word that the teachers’ contract wouldn’t be reopened. Again and again, the premier said the broken relations with the teachers’ unions were all about negotiations process and that there was “no new money” available.

Now, it’s quite possible that the fact that sports teams and school clubs are back on is the only thing parents will care about. But the ensuing political hay that her opponents will make of the issue will take a bit of the shine off Wynne’s sparkling stature.

Neither issue will likely catch up with the premier until after the budget is approved, which seems likely now that the NDP has extracted a promise from the Liberals to go along with the New Democrats’ scheme to reduce auto insurance premiums by 15 per cent.

The budget looks like it could be tabled at the end of this month, or even early May. But that still leaves enough time to get it through the Ontario legislature before Metrolinx comes out with its report. Keeping a lid on the teacher negotiations may be tougher, but that uncomfortable issue shouldn’t affect the passage of the Wynne government’s inaugural budget.

As all eyes focus on federal budget battles, let’s not glide too smoothly past America’s latest jobs report from this past Friday: It’s a blunt indicator of the structural economic challenges that are still with us since the Great Recession.

America’s jobs challenge and Europe’s slogging fiscal crisis are both, at their core, about the underlying demographic changes in our societies. There is still a profound mismatch between the economic and social programs of the 20th century and this century’s new and evolving demographics. We’re living longer and working longer – yet we stubbornly cling to “old” notions of what retirement means.

There are clues to understanding all of this in the recent and seminal 2013 S&P Global Aging Report. The ratings agency Standard and Poor’s released the newest installment of its Global Aging report, which highlights the inconsistencies between systems built for the last century and today’s economic and demographic needs. Can we really have a well-functioning economy in which our growing percentages of aging populations are presumed to be dependent?

The 2013 edition,Cheap logo engraved luggagetag at wholesale bulk prices. “Rising to the Challenge,” has some unexpected good news about the progress that Europe and other nations are making in regard to fiscal sustainability and population aging.

Standard and Poor’s has been writing about the fiscal and economic implications of population aging for over a decade. Its analysis has been insightful and incisive, if not wholly optimistic. In 2010’s “Global Aging: An Irreversible Truth,” S&P wrote: “In our view, population aging will lead to profound changes in economic growth prospects for countries around the world, alongside heightened budgetary pressures from greater age-related spending needs. In the absence of appropriate budgetary adjustment, additional reforms to pension and health-care systems, or structural measures to improve sovereigns’ growth potential, our projections show the future fiscal burden will increase significantly across the board.”