TORONTO — Olivia Chow said Thursday she does not think she would raise property taxes more than 1% above inflation. She would not set a number she will not cross.The exchange came at a debate with Brad Bradford, where CBC municipal affairs reporter Isaac Callen brought up the 2023 by-election, when Chow would not name a rate and said the increase would be modest. The increases that followed were 9.5%, then 6.9%, then 2.2%. This campaign she has said increases will be at or around inflation; Callen asked if she has a maximum number.Chow said she inherited a $1.8 billion budget hole, uploaded the Gardiner and the Don Valley Parkway to the province, and got what she called “multi billion dollars” to fix the TTC and the roads. She said the rate has come down each year, and that this year’s increase is 2%, just below inflation. “I hope it is around 2 or 3%.” Asked if she would go more than 1% above inflation, she said: “No, I don’t think so.”.Bradford said that is the credibility problem. “You promised everybody a modest tax increase. What followed was the biggest tax increase in the city’s history.” He said the 2.2% was landed by drawing on reserves going into the election, and that voters in Scarborough and North York do not take the new promise at her word.Chow said she fixed a mess Bradford helped create as vice-chair of the budget committee, and that his own plan would raid the water reserve set aside to fix pipes.Asked where he would find the money for 1,000 new officers and for scrapping the city’s share of the land-transfer tax, Bradford said hundreds of millions are pulled from the operating budget each year to subsidize capital. He put next year’s figure at $256 million. He said he would separate capital from operating and finance projects over the life of the asset, the way the province and Toronto Hydro do, so services are not cut. He likened it to Prime Minister Mark Carney’s approach.Chow said borrowing is not a plan. “You can’t just borrow more money. When you borrow money, then your credit rating is going to go down.” She said the city’s rating went up for the first time in 23 years.Bradford said no independent line-by-line review has been done since 2011, and that the budget has risen by $3 billion under Chow.
