Winter Walking and Cycling

[the_councillor]

1.  Spending every disposable cent for the foreseeable future on snow clearing knowing full well it means we won't be able to fund ambitious affordable housing plans and reducing homelessness.  (i.e. people that don't even have a home to be trapped in.)

Surfacing this option is a strange distraction device. The context of the debate for the public, in the news media etc [1], has always been in terms of new money. (eg Kitchener residents don’t want to pay for snow shovelling).

Why are the only options for spending city money snow shovelling and homelessness? You're presenting a false dichotomy using two social safety systems in a year where one of the loudest protests is for defunding police specifically to go towards helping all kinds of people before the police are required, including and especially homeless folks. There are more than two dials in any budget.

There are 3 dials.

1.  Cut planned spending (Affordable housing, Cycling MP, Planned Rec amenities in the south end etc.)

2.  Cut existing spending (which typically regresses to "cut the things that "I" don't use".)

3.  Raise taxes

To be clear, I would raise taxes on the wealthy, but that is not within municipal power.  We must tax rich and poor alike, considering only their property value.