“I Want” sensible tax policy
David Miller is spearheading a new initiative to convince the Federal government to cough up… I mean transfer… one cent of the GST to municipalities. The campaign, called ONE CENT NOW, is being promoted by a handful of mayors from across the country and is designed to continue pressure on provincial and federal leadership during a time when elections loom in for a majority of all Canadians provincially, and with a federal one in sight.
Speaking at the Toronto City Summit Alliance, Miller said the campaign for a penny of the GST would provide Canada’s municipal governments with more than $5 billion per year.
Toronto would get more than $400 million this year, while other GTA municipalities, including Ajax, Aurora and Oshawa, would get $437 million.
Normally I love to stump for Toronto, but the fact remains that the federal government can’t lose $5 billion in revenue and do any of the things that I would like it to, such as fixing the “fiscal imbalance”, restoring the Kelowna Accords, making an investment in climate change, etc. I’m not entirely sure how I feel about this initiative.
So many services have been downloaded over the years onto other levels of government, at the same time as funding has been cut. The cities have the least power - in our paternalistic system, they are under the control of the provinces. Yet they have so much responsibility (e.g. Toronto deals with a lot of health and welfare which is supposed to be the responsibility of the province)
Municipal governments are the most efficient of all governments. They do so much with so little, and they are heavily underfunded.
Also, vital cities are extremely important for the industry and economy of the whole country. (interesting article)
If the CPC can talk about reducing the GST one percent, they can afford instead to give it to cities.
That’s my opinion, anyways.
Comment by Red Jenny — February 27, 2007 @ 11:15 am
Also, investing in cities for things like public transportation (one of the main issues) will help us towards our climate change far more than some of the other initiatives.
Comment by Red Jenny — February 28, 2007 @ 1:13 pm