“This proposed budget will mean change in Torontonians’ lives today. Change means libraries open seven days a week, transit fares frozen while TTC service increases and thousands more kids fed meals at schools and summer camps,” Chow told reporters at city hall.
“Pools open sooner and longer; renovictions prevented by taking housing off the market and more support for tenants; traffic agents to keep Toronto moving and emergency responders arriving sooner when you need them most.”
☝️Now that’s how a politician should talk about taxes.
As usual, Chow misleads the public - the biggest increase goes to the most generous ever public-union contracts, and I don’t think that this will make TTC run better or the streets cleaner.
The services she mentions are run by people. There are no services without people. Good wages affect hiring, the quality of staff, retention and turnover. Why would that not affect the quality of those services?
Do we have to wait for inflation to outpace wages enough for people to start quitting the services, like nurses are, to realize that good pay is important?
Also weren’t those workers have their pay increases capped to 1% per year during the post-COVID inflation period by Bill 124?
In addition pay anywhere, whether being in public service, or private firms is used as comparison by employeers and employees elsewhere. If a place pays better, it’s used by employees at another place to ask for better wages. If a place pays less, it’s used by employers elsewhere to give lower wages. Better wages across the board are good for the economy and all working people, up to the point where they start driving up inflation. We’re not anywhere close to that. If you’ve heard the term “wages haven’t caught up to inflation”, the process of catching up is people negotiating higher wages. Just like the current example. Without it, we get poorer and poorer over time. Might sound familiar.