If taxes go up, will things get fixed?

During last year’s election campaign, Olivia Chow’s opponents hammered away at her, asking how high she planned to raise property tax rates.

- EDWARD KEENAN

“Why doesn’t she just come up with a number to stop this line of questioning?” became a standard pundit head-scratcher. The obvious answer: she didn’t care to stop that line of questioning, because she didn’t think her potential voters were overly concerned with her hiking taxes. She was right enough about that to get elected.

Now we’ll see just how far that lack of concern actually extends.

A possible property tax increase of as much as 16.5 per cent will certainly test the tolerance of even many progressive voters. And you could say it tests the elasticity of the word “modest,” which is what Chow promised her increases would be.

To be clear: these numbers are from a staff budget proposal presented Wednesday — the public is invited to weigh in at meetings and telephone town halls and then the mayor may make significant changes. This is a starting point that “gets us into the conversation,” as city manager Paul Johnson said. It’s not a final decision, or even a proposal from the mayor. Yet.

To break it down, the property tax increases in the staff presentation amount to nine per cent on the base residential rate (half that much for multi-unit apartment buildings), 1.5 per cent from the “city building fund” approved under the previous mayor, John Tory, and a possible six per cent more if the federal government doesn’t come through with $250 million to shelter refugees.

Adding all that up — and the three per cent hikes in water and garbage rates as well — and the back of my napkin says the average homeowner in Toronto is looking at paying as much as $634.50 more to the city this year than last year.