The city’s “gotcha” parking enforcement has long generated mistrust and contempt from its citizens. The ticketing process is born out of the sheer desperation of a government that spends and will not economize. If income or sales taxes were applied in the same unreasonable, unpredictable way, there would be a revolt. Today on South Bayview, the inevitable abuse of the authority to tax played out again. A shopper, nearly in tears, ran to her car as the enforcement officer slapped a ticket on it. She was five minutes late. Well, you may say, the law is the law. In fact, there is no other tax legislation that requires a citizen to guess whether he is going to be taxed because he misjudged the time of day. Or because he was routinely delayed a couple of minutes. And if parking enforcement were done merely to police the availability of parking, enforcement officers would behave reasonably. There was, for example, abundant parking on Bayview Ave. as the ticket man taxed that shopper $30. In Toronto, parking fines have nothing to do with parking. It’s a disgrace that the City pretends to be keeping order when it is really out to fleece as many drivers as it can.