Chow pushes post-Labour Day campaign in ‘progressive’ direction

"I know my values are shared by a majority of people in this city," Chow said at her Yonge Street headquarters Tuesday, Sept. 2, arguing what those residents want is a "more progressive" city government.

Chow said raising the municipal land transfer tax on Toronto’s most expensive homes – a proposal criticized immediately by the city’s realtors – will feed 36,000 more children nutritious snacks in school as well as buy some short-term transit improvements.

Chow said raising the municipal LTT to three per cent on homes selling for $2 million or more - covering 473 houses and 56 condominiums over the past year - would net the city $20 million annually. The city’s LTT on homes over $400,000 is now two per cent, though there are rebates for first-time buyers.

"We need to invest in people now. I’m being up-front," said Chow, who said the funds will be spent on the school snacks, new TTC buses, bus repairs and a garage, as well as engineering studies for a downtown relief subway line.

"What comes through is my commitment to making a difference in people’s lives."

Chow said she chose the first day of school for her announcement because some children arriving at Toronto schools may be hungry: a "shocking" report last week said 29 per cent live in poverty, she said.

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‘When you’re hungry, you can’t focus. You can’t learn very well," said Chow, who helped start the school nutrition program as a City of Toronto trustee in the 1980s and wants to expand it as mayor.

Supported by fundraisers, school boards, non-profits, banks and others, it’s pay-what-you-can, and "for every kid, not just for poorer ones," she said..

Chow suggested frontrunner John Tory and other mayoral candidates who promise transit improvements without specifying revenues to pay for them are being dishonest.

Using a hike on $2-million homes is "a sound investment," she said, arguing people who can afford those homes, or homes costing $10 million, can pay a per cent more.

Frances Lankin, a former New Democrat MPP and former CEO of Toronto’s United Way, there to endorse Chow, called the proposed shift in LTT an investment in children’s future.

Hunger is "a haunting issue" for parents who send children to school hungry, and for children who struggle to stay awake, said Lankin, who called on both the city and province to do more.

"This is something we can tackle."

Brought in using new powers secured for the city under its former mayor David Miller, the municipal LTT has proved to be a money-maker city council could not afford to cut.

Realtors as a professional group, however, despise it, and a statement by the Toronto Real Estate Board on Tuesday called it "an unfair and unpredictable" revenue source the city should rely on less, not more.

"This tax hurts those who can least afford it and any proposals from mayoral candidates should be looking for ways to provide relief to home buyers who currently pay $8,000, upfront, to the city on the average home purchase in Toronto," said Von Palmer, the board’s chief government and public affairs officer.

It is also not right that people purchasing homes below the city’s average price - $585,000 - are currently forced to pay the highest land transfer tax rate, he said.

In another release, David Soknacki, also a mayoral candidate, disagreed with Chow’s assessment of her LTT proposal as "more progressive," arguing it is regressive because it "does nothing to stop the rising burden of the tax on lower and middle income homebuyers due to price inflation."

Because home prices in the city are rising, but transfer tax brackets aren’t, her plan will actually make this tax more regressive over time," Soknacki said.

Fiona Nelson, a former chairperson of the pre-amalgamation Toronto Public School Board, was in Chow’s office during the announcement and, in an interview afterwards, offered the candidate her support.

"Hungry children are often very fractious children," and having decent food available for snacks in school is important, said Nelson, adding she remembers how Chow, as city council’s children’s advocate under then-mayor Mel Lastman, helped expand the school nutrition program.

Nelson, who sits on the Toronto Board of Health’s Food Policy Council, recalled that as a kindergarten teacher at Regal Road Junior Public School near Dufferin Street and Davenport Road in the 1950s and 1960s, she and other teachers made porridge for pupils in what was then an immigrant neighbourhood which sent many children to school hungry.