I am begging Toronto to raise my f***king taxes

The case for embracing naked self-interest over noble civic duty

I don’t like paying taxes, but I pay them. I own a home in an expensive city, which makes me lucky—and also means I have some semblance of a stable income.

Every year I get a big fat property tax bill. And I look at it and shudder, and rework my budget for the next six months.

And then inevitably I leave my house and actually try to live in Toronto and wish fervently I paid more.

This is not altruistic. I need to make this clear. This is not me counting my blessings and wanting to pay my fair share to help the less fortunate, to lift up my fellow citizens, to do my civic duty and all the stuff that I would definitely absolutely post about on Twitter if they ever did seriously raise my taxes.

No, no. This is naked self interest. My city sucks and I would pay to make it better, for everyone sure, but mostly for me.

I would cough up an extra $200/year if I knew the streetcar would arrive on time. I’d pay $14.99 more per month if it meant I didn’t have to engage in the digital hunger games to maybe, possibly get my child into a single Parks and Recreation program. An extra $10 per winter month to ensure my parents don’t have to risk injury walking three ice-coated blocks of sidewalk to visit their grandchild in January? Fuckin’ A.

If I never had to see this crap again? I dunno, would $29.99 per year get it done? I am used to subscribing to things. I’d bitch about it once, and then forget it every year, like that stupid iTunes Match thing I forget to cancel every March before it renews.

Even if you don’t care about those things, you have your own personal issues. Maybe you have a dog and would like off-leash areas that aren’t dirt surrounded by chain-link fences. I don’t care, sure! I will respect your utterly selfish reasons for paying more taxes as long as you respect mine.

I wish we could reframe the debate around taxes, particularly at the municipal level, to focus more on this sort of naked self-interest. It would be nice if people did good things for the right reasons, but all recent indications are that the world in general is not headed in that direction.

So lean into the skid. Tell people all the better things they can have if they pay more. Give them examples that will resonate with them personally and make their already relatively easy middle class lives easier. And sure, some of that money will also find its way to helping people that need help, but we don’t need to talk about that during the campaign. It’s a bummer.

Your property taxes are going up, but you’ll have wi-fi on the subway, beer in parks, we’ll shovel your sidewalk and look after your kid on weekdays in the summer. Quid pro quo.

There’s a reason I pony up for better seats at the ballgame, you know? That’s the kind of civic message we need.