Toronto city council is debating a new tax on billboards this week. Links are here and here. The idea is to implement a tax on billboards in the city and use the revenue to facilitate a cleanup and beautification of the city. And anyone who's been outside lately knows we need a cleanup here.
One side of the fence sees billboards as urban blight and visual pollution. The other sees them as a sign of business-friendly city government.
Billboards should be taxed, but so should all the other pseudo-advertising that clutters up the great outdoors. From those plastic signs for roofers to the posters that seem to overlap one another in a space of minutes. If a budget can afford a billboard, a poster or the printing of thousands of plastic signs, it can afford to pay a tax to use public space. If it doesn't pay a tax to use public space, then why should it be allowed to remain? This isn't a freedom of speech issue, it's not an example of government being unfriendly to business. It's about public space and who gets to use it.
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