Tom Vegh has a casual relationship with the truth. 

The two of them barely know each other.

I have to fact check everything he says. 

He peddles misinformation on an industrial scale.

When I call him out he squeals that he’s never been the target of such nasty attacks during his years in municipal politics. 

Non-existent Task Force

I wrote to Vegh yesterday about a claim he makes on his election website. 

He says he is a sitting member of the Newmarket Facilities Needs Task Force which was

"created in 2019 to look at the Town’s needs for a new Library and other municipal facilities.”

He tells the voters it was put on hold because of COVID even though the virus arrived in Canada on 25 January 2020.

I ask Vegh:

“Did the Task Force ever meet in 2019? And are you on it?”

I can find no reference to the Task Force on the Town’s website:

Nor can I find any minutes of any meetings.

I ask Vegh:

“Have you invented this Task Force to embellish further your long list of achievements in office?”

I wait to hear from him.

Respecting your tax dollars

Elsewhere on his election website Vegh tells us he respects your tax dollars:

“Newmarket taxes continue to be 10% below the GTA average. Tom has consistently supported limiting tax increases to 1.99% at or below the cost of living.”

Here are the tax increases in Newmarket since 2019 together with the annual increases in the Consumer Price Index as reported by Statistics Canada. The percentage increase is for the Town portion of the tax, excluding the Region’s tax take.

The table shows that in two of the past three years the Town’s percentage tax increase has been higher than the Consumer Price Index.

The CPI is one of the most widely used measures of inflation. It measures the average change in retail prices encountered by all consumers in Canada but it is important to note it is not strictly a cost of living index which measures price changes experienced by consumers in maintaining a constant standard of living. 

I am not entirely sure what Tom was thinking about when he told us he respects our tax dollars – or where he got his information from.

Gordon Prentice 13 October 2022