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Harper rejects financial aid for cities

Robert Benzie
Rob Ferguson
Queen's Park Bureau

Premier Dalton McGuinty took a message from the cities to Prime Minister Stephen Harper yesterday: Please help.

Harper's reply: Don't bother asking.

The two leaders met privately for 45 minutes yesterday at a downtown hotel, with the premier suggesting federal funding could help cash-strapped Ontario municipalities.

"I raised the issue directly with Mr. Harper as to whether his government had any interest whatsoever in lending direct support to our municipal partners," McGuinty told reporters later.

"It would be fair to say that he is not particularly receptive to that approach."

McGuinty also asked Harper about cutting interest rates in an effort to cool a red-hot loonie that has been hurting Ontario's manufacturing sector.

Toronto Mayor David Miller has been asking that one percentage point of the federal GST be given to municipalities, which would mean $410 million a year to help the city build and maintain roads, bridges and expressways.

And this week, Mississauga Mayor Hazel McCallion launched her own campaign to get federal funding for infrastructure costs after council voted to impose a 5 per cent levy on property taxes to pay for repairs and replacement of aging bridges, roads and sewer and water systems.

But sources say the Prime Minister emphasized in the meeting that he had "no plans to transfer tax to another level of government" and noted municipalities are creatures of the province – not a federal responsibility.

McGuinty didn't buy the argument that funding of cities should be simply a provincial responsibility.

"The way I see it is that our cities and towns are centres of innovation and wealth creation and we need to do more together to lend direct support to them," he said.

"It's great to get Mayor McCallion publicly speaking to this important issue.

"If we're going to enjoy any success ... we need more mayors of small communities and large communities speaking out across the country and saying to the federal government, `You find yourself in a wonderful position, where you're running surpluses on a continual basis. Why can you not come to the table and lend direct support to Canadian municipalities?'"

McCallion told the Star after hearing what Harper said to McGuinty that she expects other mayors across the country to take up her crusade and take it to the people – especially if there is a federal election next year.

"The citizens have a choice," said McCallion, mayor since 1978 and one of Canada's most popular and influential civic leaders. "They can press the federal government or they pick up the tab on their property taxes. They can't sit back and do nothing."

The surtax will cost Mississauga homeowners an average of $50 a year.

McCallion said she's not surprised Harper and federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty aren't listening to cities given that the former Ontario Conservative government – of which Flaherty was a part – downloaded social housing, ambulance and other costs on municipalities.

"We got shafted. You think he's going to change his colours when he gets to Ottawa? We've got a fight on our hands," she said.

Flaherty was unfazed by the criticism.

"We're different orders of government and I know them both well. I've known Hazel for a long time (from) when I was in provincial politics," said Flaherty, who was Ontario finance minister under former premier Mike Harris.

"We believe in lowering taxes. We believe in being very careful on the spending side as well."

Flaherty noted that Ottawa is giving the provinces $33 billion in infrastructure over the next seven years, which will help municipalities.

"It's not a drop in the bucket," he said.

Beyond the impasse on municipal funding, Harper and McGuinty's "high-level" discussion centred on the impact of the soaring Canadian dollar on Ontario manufacturers.

"I made my pitch, I expressed my concerns once again about the effect the high dollar is having on our manufacturers and our exporters," he said.

"The Prime Minister, I can say, listened intently."

Harper did not meet reporters after his meeting with McGuinty nor after a speech to the Canadian Club at the Royal York Hotel, in which he said the fundamentals of the Canadian economy were sound, and that tens of thousands of new jobs were being created each month.

"It's worth noting that our economy has been showing tremendous resiliency against a range of economic changes," Harper said.

   

saw this article on the front page of the "toronto star " today .

our liberal premier has now decided that cities like toronto and mississauga somehow need desperately financial aid from ottawa .

but these cities are actually very economicaly good and rather well off areas, complete with million dollar condos, malls , modern homes and restaurants .
these cities are doing just fine and there municipalities do not need money desperately as they claim and allready have the tax base available if they needed it.

   

decided not to ad a poll on this one , figure users can leave comments instead of voting possibly multiple times in polls.

sorry heres the link


http://www.thestar.com/News/Ontario/article/275075

   

So you are advocating the raising of taxes?

   

I agree, the cities aren't doing ALL that damn badly off and if they go to anyone it should be the provincial governments not the federal government. This sounds like the provincial governments just want to off-load yet another expense to the Feds.

I understand, but they should have choosen wiser. They should've choosen another area of provincial responsibility to haggle over. However, this might be useful to the Liberals as they could concievabley use this as a wedge issue between the cities and the Federal Tories. Then, if that's the case. Harper better make it crystal clear WHY he is taking the stand he is so as to reduce the effectiveness of that tactic.

   

I'd just like to know what information you guys are relying on to determine that the cities are fine?

Just curious.

   

no but i'm only trying to point out that a city like mississauga is well off to say the least and has many major corporations , plants , business all based there . which pay taxes to the city , i just don't see how they can be so poor ? , when the city is so rich compared to many other areas in ontario which have way less employers and businesses.

   

Miller needs to look within. Paying a TTC worker $25 an hour to collect tokens seems a tad excessive.

If he wasn't such a union loving pinky he could make some better deals with the unions and workers employed by the city.

Toronto voted the idiot in twice. Take it on the chin TO.
Pay your own way like all the other cities and municpalties have to.

   

well cities like vancouver and toronto seem to have lots of jobs , office towers , businesses . not exactly poor by my standards . ( well certain areas are poor but in general city is not )

if they can afford to buy expensive waterfront condo's i think they are doing fine financially .

   

This is a major issue in municipal politics. Many voters base their decision on one thing: taxes. If you run on a platform of raising property taxes, you're going to have a tough time. So how do you keep up with inflated costs when you can't increase revenues? If I recall correctly, Miller ran on a policy of increasing taxes at the rate of inflation, which was tough enough to swallow for some people.

The "well off", who vote more often, are not as affected by a crumbling city infrastructure as the less well off are.

   

If "people" can buy expensive waterfront condos then the city is doing well financially? I don't get it.

   

guess my reasoning is if city residents can afford half million dollar condos then there is lots of money in that city and city is likely collecting plenty in proprrty and other taxes , more than enough to pay the bills .

   

That reasoning is a bit off.

Unless you're going to milk your rich patrons, there's no reason to think that the rich are going to support the city. If property taxes are through the roof, no one will live there.

You need to raise taxes. But if you tell people that you don't get elected. If you don't tell them, then raise taxes anyway, you're out the next election while your successor gets to reap the benefits of the increase in revenues.

Appealing to the Fed for money is another plan (even though cities are section 92).

   

To come to my assessment of what makes a city a profitable place to live, or at the very least, economically healthy and vibrant I take a cross-section of about a dozen "average" jobs like city workers, municipal workers wages, cops, nurses, teachers and the like. Which is usually a good cross-section of middle-income earners in any city. I would look at the minimum wage, the average rent / montly mortgage, and what they already pay in property and income tax for that region or city. All of which can be obtained online. And all of which I've previously done my work on since Toronto, Montreal, Halifax, St' Johns, Calgary, Saskatoon and Vancouver are ALL cities I'm looking at to move to when I come home eventually and I have family and friends in all those cities.

And yep, most of the cities I looked at are doing allright. Now, are they being managed well? That's a different question alltogether. Are the buses running, how's the infastructure? Are the hospitals running and efficient? All these are matters to be looked after by that particular city's bean counters. Not the federal government. So if the situation is such that the cities are looking at their infastructure and using THAT to base their ascertations on (that they need money from the feds) then that is STILL not the fed's responsibility and those city mayors need to go a knocking on their provincial Premier's door. Not the Feds.

It smells like some issues of civic budgetary mismanagement are creeping to the surface on this issue... Some mayors had better make better use of their budgets and just because they don't want to be unpopular and increase taxes to pay for that mismanagement doesn't mean the Canadian taxpayer should have to suffer nationally.

   

One of the biggest problems Canada has is the waste that occurs each time governments touch our money and re-distribute it. Our taxation model stinks and its very inefficient. Toronto is the perfect example. Toronto generates substantial wealth, and each level of government is more than happy to collect from the taxpayers of the city.

There is no doubt in my mind that Toronto is in the mess it is in due to the uploading and downloading of responsibilities between municipal, provincial, and federal governments. For years governments have had to shift around the tax dollars collected by each to other areas where funds are needed.

This is why I believe micro-management is the way to go, and I hope the city of Toronto realizes the federal government will not support it, and it has to find its way out. And it may be time for Toronto to have its costs of living properly accounted for, and take responsibility for the city rather than giving it onto other governments.

   

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