Premier Breaks His Promise Once Again

Toronto: The Canadian Taxpayers Federation condemned the McGuinty government for its proposed Respect for Municipalities Act. This Act will, if passed, amend the province's Taxpayer Protection Act to allow Queen's Park to give municipalities new powers of taxation without first obtaining approval from taxpayers through a referendum.

"In the 2003 provincial election, Dalton McGuinty promised to uphold the Taxpayer Protection Act. Now that he is Premier, he is gutting it, piece by piece," said CTF Ontario Director Tasha Kheiriddin. "First he amended it in 2004 to allow the imposition of the Health Tax. Now he wants to change it to allow for new municipal taxes. This is another shameful breach of his most important election promise. To taxpayers, his word means squat."

According to a statement today by Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister John Gerretsen, the proposed legislation will not directly extend any new revenue tools to municipalities, but will "remove obstacles that prevent the introduction of legislation that would broaden revenue tools for municipalities." The statement further indicated that that the goal of the new Act is to "allow the government to move forward with proposed legislation to give new fiscal tools to the City of Toronto and other municipalities."

"This is code for higher taxes and indirectly doing what the premier pledged not to do directly: raise people's taxes," said Kheiriddin. "After Toronto gets new taxing powers, you can be sure that other municipalities will quickly line up at Queen's Park and ask for the same thing. If this proposed Act becomes law, Ontario taxpayers will have no protection from tax-happy governments at all levels."

The CTF will continue to oppose the imposition of new municipal taxes, whether through amendments to the Taxpayer Protection Act or other means. The CTF will also continue working with its partners in the Joint Ontario Business Sector (JOBS) coalition, which is meeting with MPPs later this week to discuss positive reforms to the City of Toronto Act and alternatives to higher municipal taxation.