{"id":829,"date":"2007-11-02T11:35:42","date_gmt":"2007-11-02T18:35:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/2007\/11\/02\/the-continuing-saga-of-how-canadian-c"},"modified":"2007-11-02T11:43:42","modified_gmt":"2007-11-02T18:43:42","slug":"the-continuing-saga-of-how-canadian-cities-fund-infrastructure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/2007\/11\/02\/the-continuing-saga-of-how-canadian-cities-fund-infrastructure\/","title":{"rendered":"The continuing saga of how Canadian cities fund infrastructure"},"content":{"rendered":"

If the “continuing saga” were a question, the answer might be “badly.” Or: “poorly,” literally. The Toronto Star<\/a>‘s Jim Coyle has a great column, which asks this question: If Tories not for cities now, when?<\/a><\/p>\n

He leads us into the problem with Rabbi Hillel’s three questions, as used by Bob Rae, a Liberal politician at the federal level:<\/p>\n

“If I am not for myself, who is for me?” An acknowledgement, Rae said, of the enduring and undeniable value of self-interest. “But if I am only for myself, what am I?” A prod, Rae suggested, to the need for generosity and justice in a world too much given to greed.<\/p>\n

The third and final question was more succinct.<\/p>\n

“If not now, when?”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The questions take your guard down — one hopes that many people will open their minds to the questions that Coyle’s commentary goes on to raise. The issue is how Canadian cities (municipalities) are funded: they don’t keep the Provincial sales tax, they don’t keep the income taxes, they don’t keep the GST (Goods & Services Tax, which goes to the feds). They get the property taxes — big whoop, eh? In times of economic prosperity, people earn more money (so they pay more income tax) and they buy bigger ticket items (and pay more GST and provincial sales tax). Their real estate values might go up, but their property taxes rise only marginally.<\/p>\n

Therefore, cities don’t gain from economic prosperity at the rate they should — should, because most of the prosperity is generated by cities.<\/p>\n

Here’s the rest of Coyle’s column. Pass it on.<\/p>\n

In the wake of this week’s federal mini-budget, with its refusal to pony up a share of the GST to Canada’s cities, Toronto Mayor David Miller could be forgiven for joining the rabbi’s fan club, too.<\/p>\n

If not now \u2013 when federal coffers are overflowing, when times are so good Ottawa can serve up a smorgasbord of tax cuts, when the needs of cities are apparent to any with eyes to see, when Canada’s ongoing evolution into an urban nation is made plainer with every passing census \u2013 when indeed?<\/p>\n

Now seemed such a perfect intersection of supply and demand. Now seemed the opposite of a perfect storm providing the occasion of unavoidable disaster, but, rather, an ideal conjunction of events providing the golden opportunity for action, vision and tangible acknowledgement of new realities.<\/p>\n

Gord Steeves, president of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, may even have been understating things when he said Ottawa had a “once-in-a-generation opportunity” to invest in cities.<\/p>\n

And it could hardly have been simpler. Earlier this year, Miller had launched a Once [sic] Cent Now campaign to get a penny of the GST for municipalities, which are home to 80 per cent of Canadians and generate most of the country’s wealth, but which have staggered as senior levels of government downloaded more and more 21st century responsibilities while retaining Victorian-era funding arrangements. <\/em>[emphasis added]<\/p>\n

“We need the kind of stable and predictable funding that comes with permanent access to revenues that grow with the economy,<\/em>” Miller said this week. [emphasis added: this gets back to the point I made above: property taxes don’t “grow with the economy,” they stay relatively stable…]<\/p>\n

These are hardly new words. It’s almost six years since Miller, then still a city councillor, wrote of how hamstrung cities were “because of outdated federal-provincial-municipal policies and relationships.” Cities need the sort of guaranteed funding, he said, that would allow them to rebuild. And examples are near to hand of what can be accomplished.<\/p>\n

Whatever they thought of the verdict, almost everyone covering Conrad Black’s trial earlier this year south of the border took pains to remark on how wonderful Chicago was \u2013 it being one of the U.S. towns benefitting from billions in federal spending on urban revitalization and public transportation.<\/p>\n

It’s striking how Rae’s ruminations on ancient wisdom seem germane to the latest news cycle.<\/p>\n

Hillel’s third question speaks to the danger of doing nothing, he once said.<\/p>\n

“Just as we find excuses for delay in our own lives, putting difficult decisions aside can become habit-forming in politics as well. It is easier to stick with old habits and traditional arguments long after they have ceased to apply or even make sense.”<\/p>\n

And you don’t have to be a rabbinical scholar to know that giving cities an empty hand, and symbolic finger, when the opportunity existed to so easily do so much just doesn’t make sense.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Municipal funding is a huge problem, as far as I can tell. It colours everything, including the quality of municipal leadership we’re able to attract. I mean, who wants to go into a job where you’re hamstrung and equipped with really bad tools from the outset?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If the “continuing saga” were a question, the answer might be “badly.” Or: “poorly,” literally. The Toronto Star‘s Jim Coyle has a great column, which asks this question: If Tories not for cities now, when? He leads us into the problem with Rabbi Hillel’s three questions, as used by Bob Rae, a Liberal politician at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":311,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1824,1419,1114],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-canada","category-cities","category-leadership"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/311"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=829"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/829\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}