EON

It looks like Torontonians won’t be paying new taxes on land transfers and vehicle registration…Yet anyway.

In a dramatic turn of events, with a one-vote differential, 23-22, Councillors have agreed on a motion to delay a decision on whether or not to implement the new taxes until the Council meeting on October 22nd.  In the meantime, the motion calls for the City and Toronto Board of Trade to put pressure on political parties headed into an October 10th provincial election to upload the funding of provincial services currently paid for by the City of Toronto.

Councillors were determined to take as long as necessary to come to a decision at Monday’s City Council meeting.  Many expecting it to go well into the late hours of the night.

However, it was the surprise motion by Councillor Suzan Hall that ended the tax debate shortly before 7:00 PM.  “We all know that people can be impacted during an election period, and I think we need to take advantage of this,” she told reporters afterward.

Hall says the public and other big cities in Ontario need to be involved in the effort too.

Mayor David Miller says he doesn’t feel defeated, but when it comes to how he’s going go about lobbying the province now, after several previous attempts, he told reporters at a press conference shortly after “I haven’t considered that.”

The Mayor also told reporters that, if the taxes end up being approved in October, the soonest they would be implemented would be late February or early March.  He says that would create a significant shortfall in next year’s budget, so some service cuts may be necessary.

Several Councillors who voted for the motion say that, successful or not, the extra effort will also help Torontonians understand why new taxes are necessary.