Today's letters: A municipal income tax would do the job better

Saturday, Dec. 9: Maybe cities shouldn’t have to rely on property taxes, one reader writes. You can weigh in too at [email protected]

Published Dec 09, 2023 • Last updated 6 hours ago • 10 minute read

Ottawa Mayor Mark Sutcliffe, whose budget for 2024 just passed city council, is hoping to get more help from the Ontario government. Photo by Tony Caldwell /POSTMEDIA

A fairer way to fund city services

Re: Here’s what the City of Ottawa needs from Doug Ford, Dec. 5.

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Randall Denley is correct in his proposal that the provincial government relieve the City of Ottawa (and other municipalities) of their forced contribution towards such provincial programs as ambulance services, long-term care, public health, child care subsidies, welfare and social housing. These are programs better funded from provincial income taxes than from regressive local property taxes. These are provincial programs governed by the provincial government, and the province should pay for them.

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But why stop there? The Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) is calling for a re-vamp of how municipalities obtain the revenue needed to provide services, given the inadequacies of the property tax system. One tool is to replace the regressive property tax system with a municipal income tax: it would be fairer (based on ability to pay), easy to administer (a percentage of the provincial tax payable), and more accountable.

Municipalities in Canada once had the authority to levy income taxes. This was revoked following the Second World War when the federal and provincial governments rewrote their fiscal arrangements, leaving municipalities with local property taxes to fund local services. A lot has changed since.

As the FCM says, modern cities need better (and fairer) revenue tools than regressive property taxes to meet the needs of their residents. A municipal income tax fits that bill.

Alex Cullen, Ottawa

Taxes must reflect the city’s real costs

After spending the last 20+ years living with newly elected mayors who probably won by promising they would hold property tax increases to around 2.5 per cent, I say: really?

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We are now paying the price by living with roads and streets that are almost dangerous to drive, and diminishing social services at a time when the 65+ age group is expected to reach 30 per cent of the population in the next 10 or 15 years.

About 25 years ago, then-premier Mike Harris decided to download much of the costs of operating social services and roads to the City of Ottawa. Yet the City of Ottawa absorbed these costs without markedly increasing our property taxes? And these costs have escalated over the years — to what?

We cannot continue to live in a city whose mayors hiding from reality. Vancouver did that for years. This year, property taxes jumped a whopping 10.7 per cent as the city tries to restore depleted services and infrastructure.

Murray Minkus, Ottawa

Experimental Farm deserves respect

I have been surprised that some Ottawa city councillors think the core purpose of the Central Experimental Farm, crop breeding, should be abandoned in favour of a park or a building site.

Please look around rural eastern Ontario. Five decades ago, there was little grown but hay and some small grains. Much of the feed used east of Peterborough to outside Montreal had to be imported from southern Ontario or the United States. Now, cool tolerant corn, soybeans as well as improved cultivars of oats and wheat can be grown. This is substantially due to plant breeders supported by plant pathologists, agronomists, statisticians and laboratory scientists working on the Experimental Farm.

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Ontario accounts for 25 per cent of gross revenues from agriculture and 30 per cent of the food-processing sector in Canada. The 28,000 grain farmers of Ontario produce 90 per cent of soybeans and 50 per cent of corn produced in Canada. Of this, approximately 15 per cent is produced in Eastern Ontario.

Within the City of Ottawa, some 300,000 acres of land is farmed (half that of Prince Edward Island). In eastern Ontario, the seed market is relatively small; thus U.S. companies are much less interested to ensure that yields, disease and stress tolerance to conditions in this region are maintained.

We have studied the environmental impact of the Farm on the approximately 600,000 people who live within 10 kilometres of it. In summer, the Farm cools a very large area of Ottawa, helping to reduce energy cost. Air pollution concentrations are lower.

The historic designation of the Farm requires it to be a working farm. Food does not come from the grocery store. Farmers in Ottawa and Eastern Ontario deserve our support. The Central Experimental Farm was put where it is in 1886 for a reason. Leave it alone and for goodness sake, don’t shade it out.

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David Miller, Ottawa, Distinguished Research Professor, Carleton University

Another benefit of incineration

Re: Waste not, Dec. 2.

Thank for you for adding “Long Story” to the Saturday Citizen. I appreciate these articles, which explore a story in greater depth than is normal in a daily newspaper. And you’ve chosen the right day of the week to do this.

On last week’s feature: There is another aspect to the incineration of garbage that is worth noting. When garbage is put into a landfill, bacteria decompose the vegetable component and produce mainly methane, a greenhouse gas much more powerful than carbon dioxide. The methane is eventually oxidized in the atmosphere to carbon dioxide and water, so one finishes up with carbon dioxide anyway.

Incineration in a modern facility produces carbon dioxide directly, of course, but without methane as a precursor. So, Jane Toller could well add this environmental benefit to her pitch.

John Hollins, Gloucester, Lead author, Pathways to Reducing Canada’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Canadian Association for the Club of Rome

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But how will we transport the waste?

Over which bridge would all Ottawa’s garbage travel to get to the Pontiac incineration site?

Jerry Fiori, Ottawa

Don’t forget heating benefits

That was a wonderful overview of the evolution of garbage incineration. But uninformed attitudes still stand in the way.

Jane Toller proposes to take regional waste and burn it all to make electricity. But when you make electricity, you also make heat. If you have nowhere to sell it, then the opportunity to replace natural gas and greenhouse gases is lost.

An energy-from-waste facility in Ottawa could heat the newly refurbished government district-heating system and could be expanded to serve much of the city. As well, local wood industries have lost a market of more than three million tonnes a year of wood residues with the closure of local pulp and paper mills. We could take part of this residue and become a totally renewable-based energy economy.

Swedes, Danes and Finns have been doing this for years. We should take advantage of the lessons.

Michael Wiggin, Ottawa, Director, The Boltzmann Institute; Senior Advisor, IEA District Heating and Cooling Program

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Irish don’t get all the credit

Re: Like the Rideau Canal? Thank the Irish, Dec. 2.

It is misleading to state that “Irish workers built the Rideau Canal” (1826-1832). In fact, the labour force comprised Irish immigrants (both Catholic and Protestant); French-Canadians from Lower Canada (Quebec); and settlers from Upper Canada (Ontario) at the different worksites.

The stone masons were primarily Scots, and the military artificers (two companies of Royal Sappers & Miners) were largely Protestants recruited in Northern Ireland. The officers of the Corps of Royal Engineers were Englishmen, and among the major contractors were English and Scots Canadians, several Americans and a French-Canadian. The Rideau Canal was constructed by a multi-cultural workforce.

Robert W. Passfield, Ottawa, author of Building the Rideau Canal (1982), and Military Paternalism, Labour and the Rideau Canal Project (2013).

We must invest in COVID programs

Re: Ottawa Public Health to let go most remaining COVID-19 staff as province ends special pandemic funding, Dec. 3.

I’m deeply disappointed to hear that Ottawa Public Health will be cancelling COVID-19 programs, including immunization services for the general population. The pandemic is not over. According to Statistics Canada, COVID-19 was the third-leading cause of death for Canadians last year.

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It is irresponsible to cancel these programs. If the province has cancelled funding, the city must step up with its own funding, and put pressure on the provincial government to restore funding.

SARS-CoV-2 is a level-3 pathogen capable of harming organs throughout the body. Even a relatively “mild” acute case may lead to long COVID, cognitive issues, dementia, strokes, heart failure, heart attacks, diabetes and other health issues. Repeat infections are associated with more severe outcomes.

We need to invest in preventive public health measures. These must include multiple layers of protection, including universal masking with N95 respirators, vaccines, HEPA filters and improved ventilation.

Mike Buckthought, Ottawa

‘Axe the tax’ economically unsound

Re: ‘You will have no rest’: Poilievre warns Trudeau no MP holidays without farm carbon-tax relief, Dec. 6.

University of Calgary Prof. Trevor Tombe and his co-workers recently published a thorough study on the effects of the carbon tax on inflation and Canadians’ income. Tombe reported that in British Columbia, for example, the carbon tax increases the cost of goods by only an average of 0.6 per cent and contributes only 0.3 per cent to food inflation.

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Using best-in-class software from Statistics Canada, Tombe’s study also concluded that “a clear majority of households do receive rebates that are larger than the carbon tax they pay for.” Tombe concluded that roughly half of Canadian households receive carbon tax rebates from the federal government that are actually between $20 to $40 a month “more than” what they paid in carbon tax.

His study concludes that if the carbon tax and the associated government rebates were eliminated, net monthly income for the majority of Canadians — especially for low and middle wage earners — would actually be reduced not increased.

It is clear now that Pierre Poilievre’s “Axe the Tax” parliamentary filibustering will not only waste time and money and do nothing to alleviate climate change but if enacted, it will also lighten our wallets.

Doug Zuliani, Stittsville

Let them debate on live TV instead

These verbal attacks between Justin Trudeau and Pierre Poilievre shouldn’t take place in the House of Commons. Let both party leaders agree to a live TV debate, one-on-one, long before the next federal election is called. Let’s propose one by the end of 2023.

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Guy Carisse, Ottawa

No wonder we’re all worried

Re: CBC, Radio-Canada to eliminate 800 jobs and some programming amid ‘budget pressures,‘ Dec. 4.

I have been reading about:

• The CBC cutting jobs in a time of great economic fear and uncertainty. At the same time the “leader” of the CBC won’t comment on executive bonuses being cancelled.

• A senator mocking and belittling the citizens of Ottawa for complaining about trucker convoy participants making sections of Ottawa unliveable for weeks. So says the guy that gets paid six figures.

• The Trudeau Liberals rewarding their executives with bonus pay for essential failure across the board.

• People waiting for health care in hospital corridors (if they’re lucky enough to find an open emergency room). Some have died waiting for care.

I wonder why Canadians are feeling so annoyed, abandoned, worried …and disgusted?

Andrew Brown, Brockville

CBC, private networks neglect children

While limited to fringe hours on CBC, there is virtually no children’s television programming on the commercial networks. There is no children’s programming at all on radio in Canada.

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Thomas Brawn, Orléans

Not the time for CBC bonuses

Cut the CBC bonuses, preserve the jobs!

Patricia Shapiro, Greely

Gaza deaths will haunt us all

I was a Canadian soldier for 28 years. We defended ourselves against aggression. It took Russia 21 months to kill 10,000 civilians; it took Israel six to eight weeks to kill the same number of Palestinians. Yet there has been little outcry from the world: women and children being shot and bombed seems to be OK.

You do not destroy an area of 2.1 million for a few mice. There is going to be a time when grandchildren ask why people let it happen.

Paul Merritt, Ottawa

Hamas could stop the war right now

Has it not occurred to the world that the simplest way to prevent Israel from killing Gazan civilians who are being used by Hamas as human shields would be for Hamas to abandon its stated mandate of annihilating Israel and massacring the Jews?

Michelle Albagli, Ottawa

Printed newspaper is a great thing

I am a loyal subscriber; every morning I pick my way to the corner — now over snow and ice — and bring home my newspaper (delivered by loyal Henry at 2 a.m.).

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I choose articles, peruse the editorial page and letters to the editor, and skim for general content. Then I do my beloved Cyberquote and Cryptic Cipher. It’s my morning tonic. The newspaper ritual has always been important to me, from the time I awaited Sunday “funny papers” as a small child during the war.

I applaud your initiative in supplementing the weekend edition with the “Long Read.” For instance, I related to “Nation on Fire,” having heard personal stories from fire victims. Telling Canadian stories, as well as a focus on books, is a value we should support.

One suggestion: four pages may be too lengthy for current readers accustomed to the “quick fix” of instant gratification. But thank you for a creative approach to foster our continued access to “real print.”

Heather Bacon, Calabogie