Let me fly my own colours up the mast here. I think the City of Toronto should raise property taxes by 5 per cent this year — an increase of about $235 per year for the average homeowner — in addition to the rate of inflation, and then commit to inflationary increases in the years to come. In addition, it should implement a 1 per cent city sales tax.

As alternatives or additions, I might also support some combination of road tolls, hotel taxes, parking taxes, and increased development charges, if they were seriously proposed. But I prefer a property tax increase to bring our rates, after inflation, in line with the ones we paid in 2010, because property taxes are stable, reliable and relatively broad-based, and I prefer a sales tax because it is paid both by residents and visitors alike, is hard to avoid, and grows and contracts with the economy.

I like the two together because they’d likely raise city revenues by close to a billion dollars a year, which would put the city on firm financial footing to pay for the services its politicians insist we need and the city we want to build.

You want to argue? Great. Bring your alternative ideas. And make them specific.

Because if there’s one thing Toronto city manager Peter Wallace’s report on the long-term financial direction of the city, which will be considered by the mayor’s executive committee on Tuesday, makes clear, it’s that the time for wringing our hands and saying “something must be done” is over and the time for actually doing something is at hand.

We’ve had years of blathering on about “efficiencies” and cuts to non-essential services that have produced some decent savings in the cost of government — $300 million since 2010, Wallace reports — but they have not fixed the structural problem that leaves the city projected to be a billion dollars per year short of its annual needs by 2021. (Or worse that that, if the city actually implements the poverty strategy it has passed, if the police department doesn’t absolutely flatline its budget starting immediately, if the real estate market slows or crashes and the land transfer tax gravy train comes to a screeching halt: Any of these could leave the city short by hundreds of millions of dollars more.)

We’ve had more years of dithering about “revenue tools,” studying and debating whether there’s a way to raise money that doesn’t actually cost anyone anything — or at least looks like it will only cost someone else — that have led to an invertebrate council majority relentlessly slithering away from even the most innocuous suggestions when it comes time to make a decision.

The time for that kind of nonsense has past.

As the report says, “The time has come for a direct conversation concerning the city’s finances.” Or as it says later: “It is no longer appropriate to kick the can down the road.”

It’s a long, detailed report, and much of what it asks council to deliberate on and study will take months or even years to think through and get right — a move to longer-term budget planning, different approaches to planning capital financing, looking at assets and how to best use or exploit them. On that last topic, expect some epic hand-waving on all sides about the possibility of selling Toronto Hydro.

But even if we want to do it — even if it’s smart to do it — selling a utility ain’t gonna fix what’s broken in the basic operating budget structure Wallace lays out. And that’s pretty simple: The city’s expenses per resident have actually gone down slightly in the past six years, after you adjust for inflation. But the city’s revenue has dropped, after inflation, even more.

Now, revenue from some things is up: TTC fare increases have seen revenue rise 17.7 per cent since 2010, while user fees from things like community centre programs and permit fees are up 9 per cent. Revenue from garbage, water and parking — which just have to pay for the services they deliver, and nothing more or less — are up 23.9 per cent. The land transfer tax, riding a ballooning real estate market, is up an absurd 167.2 per cent. All of these percentages are adjusted to reflect increases after inflation.

But property taxes? Adjusted for inflation, those are down 4.8 per cent. We already had, by far, the lowest property taxes of any city in the GTA, and the lowest of any major city in Ontario. And by raising property taxes by less than the rate of inflation each year, we’ve lowered them further. The report makes it plain: the city, generally, doesn’t have an expense problem, but it has been refusing to levy reliable, stable taxes that will cover those expenses it has. And the tricks it has used in the past to delay any real decision probably won’t work much longer, for a variety of reasons.

So: Are you among those who think the city should slash services? OK. Find a billion dollars per year in cuts you want to make, and be specific. To get you thinking about the size of that number: shuttering the entire library system and fire department would get you a little over halfway there. But be warned that, as the report outlines, the relatively conservative councils of Rob Ford and John Tory have instead generally added and enhanced services over the past six years, and have quickly reversed many of the service cuts they have actually made.

Do you have different revenue sources you prefer, instead of sales and property tax increases? Great. Be specific. Put your proposal on the table. Let’s debate actual alternatives; we can examine the pros and cons of each.

This report doesn’t present new information, not really. City and outside analysts have been delivering roughly the same message for years, and everyone has dutifully thrown back their heads and cried, “We need to do something about this.”

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Now it’s time to say what that something is, and decide to actually do it.