Chris Savard

Chris Savard
Seaway News

January 26, 2007:

After serving nine years on Cornwall City Council, I have a good understanding of the fiscal challenges that our city and municipalities across Ontario face when dealing with provincial funding allocations.

A recent administration report to Cornwall Council indicated that “based on the calculations provided by the Province, the local taxpayer has become responsible for $1,450,000 in annual costs relating to Social Housing that was previously the responsibility of the Province. The taxpayer is also responsible for $423,710 in respect of Ontario Works. The net impact of this funding inequity is $1,873.710 in each of 2005, 2006, and 2007 and will be expected for the years 2008 and 2009.”

Based on these numbers, during these five years City taxpayers will have been forced to shoulder almost $9.4 million for costs of services that were never intended to be funded by the municipal taxpayer. Further, as we all know, this gap in the revenue versus provincial expenditures has been ongoing since the late 1990’s. These numbers illustrate the Cornwall situation, but similar examples could be shown in municipalities all across Ontario.

In my last column, I wrote about some of the defining differences between Dalton McGuinty’s Liberals and John Tory’s Conservatives. This week, I would like to talk about our differing views on how to solve this funding inequity.

The McGuinty Liberals have announced that they will perform a Service Delivery Review and the results will only be released in Spring of 2008. Mr. McGuinty has owned this problem, free and clear, for three and a half years. He has a majority government, which could have fixed it, but has chosen not to do so.

A new Conservative government will be committed to action on this issue and will ensure that the Provincial-Municipal relationship is founded on mutual respect. I have raised the challenges of this funding inequity with John Tory on a number of occasions and I know that he shares my concerns. Infrastructure plans and financing will be a key part of our party’s platform during the October election.

This capital deficit cannot be fixed unless the Federal, Provincial and Municipal governments work together. John Tory has suggested the creation of five-year contracts for infrastructure investment between the three levels of government. Ontario municipal governments need a more predictable and sustainable financial model within which to work.

The existence of huge, repeated fiscal surpluses at one level of government, while others starve, is evidence of taxpayers paying more than enough in total, however their money is not getting to the places where services are actually being delivered.

A Progressive Conservative government would create a clear, agreed upon framework for provincial versus municipal responsibilities with a realistic funding model behind it. We also believe that this needs to be combined with better accountability, so each level of government can be held accountable for results.

Our focus, is and must be, not on endless re-examination of the past and trying assign blame, but rather on the future and the task that lies in front of us…namely building a stronger province and stronger communities.

chris@chrissavard.ca