Another Hume article:
It's time to drop the gloves and fight back TheStar.com - News - It's time to drop the gloves and fight back
August 01, 2007
Christopher Hume
Big or small, the province hurts them all.
As Doug Reycraft likes to point out, every municipality in Ontario – and there are 445 – has been damaged by the provincial government's policies. Toronto may have suffered the most, but Reycraft's own Southwest Middlesex is also feeling the pain of Queen's Park's decision to underfund and dump many of its costs onto Ontario towns and cities.
But Reycraft also happens to be the president of the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, better known as AMO, and as such has a larger voice than he would otherwise have in the ongoing war between the provincial government and the 80 per cent of the population that lives in towns and cities.
Despite this, Reycraft and his organization have been disappointingly timid in their calls for fairness. Indeed, in the words of AMO's executive director, Pat Vanini, the group has been focused on "low-hanging fruit," i.e., forcing the province to assume its legally-mandated costs of the Ontario Disability Support Plan and Ontario Drug Benefits Program.
Not that it isn't worth the effort; of the $18 billion municipalities collect from residents, fully $3 billion goes right to Queen's Park to cover its bill. Needless to say, this is not only outrageous, it is illegal.
Of every dollar paid in property taxes in Ontario, 25 cents goes to social services. In the rest of the country, it's five cents.
But let's be honest, even if Premier Dalton McGuinty does decide to undo the ruinous actions of his much-despised predecessor, Mike Harris – don't hold your breath – there's not enough fruit on these particular trees to lift Ontario's municipalities out of the fiscal hole into which they have been cast.
The real issue here goes far beyond uploading, though that would be a start. The truth is that we have created a governance system in Canada that puts cities at an enormous disadvantage. They pay most of the bills, but get little of the money they require to do so. The result is that civic services must be paid for through property taxes.
And so, while Toronto considers cutting public transit, Reycraft is trying to figure out how to cover the cost of replacing a water tower that's falling apart in his area. (Incidentally, that piece of infrastructure will run $2 to $3 million; this in a community so small that a 1 per cent increase in property taxes would yield $18,000.)
The same situation exists across the country, yet our provincial and federal governments simply refuse to deal with it. Prime Minister Stephen Harper is clearly bereft of ideas and, worse still, uninterested. It's not his problem.
McGuinty would love to do something, but is waiting for the advent of "a perfect world."
Meantime, the Canadian decline continues apace. We grow less productive, less innovative and less relevant with each passing year.
That's why the moment has come for AMO and other municipal organizations in Canada to get tough, to put aside timidity and enter the fray armed with more than a, "Please sir, I want some more."
Cities need a portion of personal income taxes. Let's say that again: Cities need a portion of personal income tax. There's no other way. All the talk about handouts and bailouts should be dismissed for the uninformed nonsense it is.
If this means a constitutional conference, let it begin. If new legislation is necessary, let's start the debate now. If it takes a revolution, let's man the barricades.
Canada has become an urban nation living in a rural past. The 19th century is over, and it's time we recognized that.
http://www.thestar.com/News/article/241914
