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Mother and childcare worker Christina Gilligan came to Toronto City Hall this morning, with a simple message for council as they go into a three-day meeting to decide the city's operating and capital budgets for 2012.
Don't cut childcare.
Gilligan, part of the group Mother's Task Force on Childcare, said plans to close three under-used childcare centres in 2012 makes little sense in a city where demand for childcare is rising, and urged councillors to reverse the recommendation when they meet.
"We came here today to tell the mayor not to hang our children out to dry, and to keep your mittens off our childcare," said Gilligan, bouncing her eight-month-old baby Zoe on her hip as she spoke.
"Currently in Toronto there are 20,000 children on a wait list for subsidy. This tells us there aren't enough childcare spots to begin with."
Gilligan and her group made their pitch late in the process - the budget has already been through both budget committee hearings and the executive committee last week. In normal years, the budget would be nailed down and only minor tweeks would be taking place at Toronto City Council.
But 2012 is not a normal year.
On Thursday, Jan. 12, members of Mayor Ford's executive committee made a bevy of last-minute amendments that modified what had begun its life as a tough budget with plethora of cuts and higher taxes.
Those modifications to the budget mean council won't be asked to approve large-scale cuts to the Toronto Public Library; sidewalk snow clearing will continue; arts and culture grants won't be cut; and residents in three homeless shelters slated for closure won't be relocated until the city finds appropriate housing for them.
The committee recommended funding continue for 12 community centres in schools. Student nutrition programs will also be maintained.
Those changes eat up almost all of $8.8 million in unanticipated assessment growth. But they leave other controversial cuts still in the budget - including reduction in TTC service, the actual closure of the above mentioned shelters, leaf clearing in parts of Etobicoke, and those daycare closures. And Toronto Public Library still hasn't gotten all the funding its board requested.
Since last week's executive committee meeting, councillors have been meeting individually and in small groups to try and hammer out a deal.
Don Valley East Councillor Shelley Carroll said the final strokes of the 2012 budget may truly be up to Toronto City Council.
"The mayor is going to have to come up with a new agenda," said Carroll, who sits among the critics of Mayor Ford's cost-cutting administration.
"The cuts that are upsetting the community you can divide into these topics: children and families, the vulnerable and seniors, economic prosperity and a liveable Toronto. If you start talking in those terms, there's no left and right any more. These are the key priorities of city council. Our citizens are saying to us those are our priorities."
But in order to fulfill those priorities, council will have to either raise property taxes beyond the 2.5 per cent the current budget recommends, or dip into $154 million in surpluses Mayor Ford says must be put toward a $700 million bill for new streetcars coming on line in the next few years.
The meeting starts tomorrow and will continue Wednesday and Thursday.
-reprinted from InsideToronto