Alan Pickersgill - The View From Here

(December 15) - Tonight’s budget is not so much an admission of failure as an accusation. Councillors have found themselves stuck between a snow drift and a bus pass. The forces that brought them here are out of their control.

The accusations of failure must be directed higher up, to the federal and provincial governments. For the past 30 years, they told us the solution to our economic problems is to cut taxes and reduce government spending.

It was a lie. The economy today is in worse shape than it’s ever been. It is true enough that there is only one taxpayer. My taxes go to support the services provided by all three levels of government. That didn’t just start today. It’s been the case for as long as I can remember.

Before we get into the debate about the city budget, remember one thing. Taxes are not evil. They are the price we pay to live in a civilized society.

We pay taxes to get everything from universal health care to weekly garbage collection. There is a cost to everything, and it has to be paid. When you add up all the services provided by all levels of government, you come up with the final bill. The full cost of living in Canada. It’s a lot of money. It has to come from taxes.

When one level of government cuts taxes, the burden falls onto lower levels. By the time it reaches the city, there is almost nowhere left to go.

Federal and provincial governments can run deficits. Cities can’t. All they can do is choose between undesirable options. Two of them are to raise taxes or cut services. There is a third option, but I’ve never heard anyone raise it until now.

We are consumed by a fear of a tax increase. All of us. The councillors who charge it, and the rest of us who pay it.

Tonight, we’ll see the distance they will go to avoid one. Eliminate sidewalk snow plowing. Raise the price of university student bus passes, even though all students pay $61 per semester whether they get one or not. Build an east end library branch but leave it sitting unopened until June. Why do all this and more?

To avoid paying more taxes.

What we can’t hear is a willingness among the members of our community to bite the bullet. The citizens who make Guelph the city we all want to call home are not accepting the consequences of the choices they have made over the past 30 years. They are not sitting at the kitchen table telling their kids it is time to face reality. We have demanded lower taxes, and now we can’t fund summer camp programs. Wives are not telling their husbands about the city’s third option: “Well, dear, we have brought ourselves to a nine per cent property tax increase, so we’ll need to cut back on the number of digital TV channels we receive.”

Oh no. We’d rather save $89,000 by eliminating a dining room program at the Evergreen Seniors Centre.

We have come to the point where everyone must suffer except us. Everyone but me must pay the price for the fiscal mismanagement of the federal and provincial governments we elected. That is not how to build a community. It is an insult to our parents and grandparents, the people who made great sacrifices to build the country that is being dismantled before our eyes and with barely a whimper of protest.

A 9.2 per cent tax increase is not fair to me. A 4.5 per cent increase is not fair to my community.

To whom is council responsible?

# posted by Alan Pickersgill @ 12:14 PM