Toronto mayoral candidate Baquie Ghazi.
Ambitious plans for mayoral candidate in 2010 race
His platform includes lowering taxes and TTC fares
By Kris Scheuer
(Updated Sepr 3.)
I admire the thought he put into developing policy ideas, but I would need to hear more about how he will implement them. From the info he’s sent to me his ideas include decreasing taxes and TTC fares while increasing housing.
While he’s not a front runner, he has some interesting ideas including lowering monthly Metropasses to $60 a month down from $121. Free TTC travel for seniors.
He says that more people will buy Metropasses and there for increase TTC profits. He wants to decrease the price by half, which would require twice as many people buying them to bring in the same revenue the TTC generates in now in Metropass sales. And it is my understanding the reason the TTC raised Metropass prices in January is it actually loses money per ride on monthly passes. Part of how he says the city can afford to lower the price of TTC passes is by charging a road toll.
ROAD TOLLS
“Charge Toll to Non-Toronto motorists driving into Toronto’s Traffic Congestion zone per day by electronic Camera monitoring. This would also bring money for City,” he writes in his press release.
I am assuming he is using the electronic camera monitoring to capture the license plates of “Non-Toronto motorists” by then checking who the car is licensed to? I am not sure, but will ask him to comment further.
Ghazi also wants to decrease property taxes, which will be a popular stance with many voters. But property taxes are one of the city’s main revenue sources to pay for services from roads and emergency services to welfare and homeless programs. His ideas is that lower property taxes will “accelerate economic growth”.
And he is calling on mayor’s two no more than a maximum of two, consecutive terms (if re-elected). His BIO says he has a master Science degree
Kris Scheuer 