As noted during a recent Chamber of Commerce speech, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation will be hosting a public meeting on October 2 to hopefully form a Brandon taxpayers' watchdog group.
 

WHEN: October 2 @ 7PM
WHERE: Royal Oak Inn.
WHO: All frustrated Brandon taxpayers welcome, no charge for attending


The reason we're trying to get something off the ground in Brandon is simple.

There are thousands of municipalities across Canada so a non-profit organization like ours couldn't possibly watchdog each one. Provincial governments and the federal government are easier as they serve large segments of the population, but municipalities are a different story.

That's why we encourage the establishment of local watchdog groups so that local taxpayers can hold local politicians' feet to the fire.

We try and help such groups by providing ideas on wasteful spending to investigate, best practices from other municipalities and assistance with things like writing press releases and filing freedom of information requests.

It's not clear whether there's enough interest in Brandon to form a formal group or not, but we thought we would give it a go. As Brandon's council tried to bring in a 15.6% property tax hike last year - while private sector taxpayers only saw a 1.1% increase in their pay cheques - clearly there's a disconnect between what people can afford and council's spending wishes. The fact over 1,000 people signed a petition opposed to the tax increase - in just a week - shows local taxpayers have concerns.

Should such a group get up and running in Brandon, it would be completely independent of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. The Brandon group would decide its own mandate, structure, issues to tackle, etc. As noted above, we would assist it should it want help with finding constructive solutions to budget challenges, writing news releases, etc.

Secondly, I would note that we're not trying to establish a group to replace the good watchdog work of the Brandon Chamber of Commerce. They do some great work, but the issues of top importance to businesses are not always aligned with the top concerns for grassroots taxpayers. A taxpayers group could work with the Chamber on some projects and perhaps work on other issues independently. Again, that would be up to a new group to decide. 

Regardless, it's always good to have more taxpayers watching government.

So that's a bit about the upcoming meeting, hopefully we'll see you there! 

In the mean time, if anyone has any questions send me an email - [email protected].