Thread by @ArielTroster

A 🧵 on why “keep taxes low” is a disingenuous and irresponsible municipal campaign promise.

Did you know that municipalities manage 60% of Canada’s infrastructure and only receive 10 cents on every tax $? That’s roads, bridges, buses, trains, pools, community centres + more.

Property taxes are municipalities’ only source of revenue, except for some federal funding sources that go straight to cities (the Canada Community Building Fund and permanent transit fund, if you must know). Property taxes are a bad source of revenue, no one likes to pay more.

BUT municipalities are stuck in a bad constitutional arrangement. They are asked to do more with less, especially thanks to the amalgamation and downloading from the province in the 90s and the 30 yrs that the feds refused to fund affordable housing. It’s a no-win situation.

So, this means that cities need to make choices on what to pay for. And what I have said before is, what we fund tells us who we are.

DYK that in Ottawa, the police budget is $346.5 million per year, while 95 social service agencies must share $27 million?

In #SomersetWard, the underfunding of social and mental health care services has a direct impact on community safety and well-being. We have the highest rate of poverty in Ottawa and my neighbours are really struggling.

Urban sprawl also costs us. A lot. Suburban expansion beyond the greenbelt costs every Ottawa resident $465 a year! Expanding roads means we can’t make transit affordable or take care of potholes in the roads we already have. cbc.ca/amp/1.6193429

So when a prospective mayor says he is going to keep taxes low, bolster police budgets and expand roads … what he is saying is that there will be very little money for anything else. And people, particularly in my ward, will suffer.

So: if we want to avoid jacking up property taxes in Ottawa, we need to make choices.

The low hanging fruit? Freeze the police budget and stop expanding roads. Period.

If we don’t do those 2 things, the cuts necessary to maintain low taxes will target the poorest among us.

So: if a mayoral candidate wants to keep taxes low AND bolster police budgets AND expand roads, it means cuts to the already-inadequate services that the people in my neighbourhood rely on. It means allowing the richest to hold onto more $, while the poor suffer.

TL;DR — If we want to keep property taxes low, it means cuts. What we cut determines who will suffer.

Making a “low taxes” promise without being upfront about what you are willing to cut is disingenuous.