September 28, 2006

PRIVATE MEMBERS'PUBLIC BUSINESS
PROVINCIAL-MUNICIPAL FISCAL REVIEW

Mr. Ernie Hardeman (Oxford): I move that, in the opinion of the House, the proposed provincial-municipal fiscal and service delivery review, which will not be completed until February 2008, after the next provincial election, is needlessly drawn out and that a full review to balance the delivery of services with the ability to pay should be completed much more expeditiously, in order to avoid hitting Ontario taxpayers with unsustainable property tax hikes or significant reductions in service.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier): Mr. Hardeman has moved private member's notice of motion number 24.

Pursuant to standing order 96, Mr. Hardeman, you have up to 10 minutes.

Mr. Hardeman: This resolution addresses an urgent problem that is facing municipalities and affecting taxpayers across the province. The problem, as we all know, is that there is an increasing gap between the cost of services that municipalities have to deliver and the provincial transfers. That gap is being passed on to taxpayers through increased property taxes and reduced services.

Municipalities urgently need the province to re-examine their relationship and balance the delivery of services with the ability to pay. The last municipal-provincial review was completed almost 10 years ago. As many of the members in this House will remember, at the time, municipalities were struggling to cover the cost of education. Exponentially increasing school board budgets were resulting in large annual increases in the property tax bill. Municipalities were begging the province to change the system and help them deal with education expenses. We took action and balanced the cost of services with the ability to pay.

Since then, circumstances have changed. The cost of some of the services has grown faster than others, the cost of delivering services overall has increased rapidly, and provincial transfers haven't kept pace. The system needs to be fixed. We have some great municipal politicians in this province, and they have been doing their best, but they have no choice: They have been forced to raise property taxes or reduce services to make ends meet. Now the time has come to again make a change to help municipalities.

The property tax hikes are not sustainable. They are causing real hardships to homeowner, especially seniors on fixed incomes. John Tory and I have been calling on the Liberal government to give municipalities the resources to deal with increasing costs. Instead, the Liberals continue to heap more expenses on to municipalities.

AMO now estimates that there is a gap between municipal transfers and the cost of social programs of over $3 billion. If the government passes the Clean Water Act, municipal expenses are expected to increase again. On August 26, the Toronto Star said -- and these are not my words -- "It's something every councillor and mayor across the province struggles with at budget time. The costs of the programs the province has decreed they must provide keep going up, so either property taxes have to go up too or other city services have to take a cut."

John Tory and I have been out talking to people about the need for a municipal-provincial services solution for a long time. Finally, in August, the Premier committed to do something, but his solution is to study the problem for 18 months, so that it goes away until after the next provincial election. This just isn't a solution. I'm glad that after three years of talking, the Premier finally stepped up and committed to have the provincial-municipal fiscal service review, but 18 months to study this is unacceptable. It is far too long for municipalities to wait. They don't need a long-drawn-out study. What they need is help now.

On August 26 of this year, Hazel McCallion, the mayor of Mississauga, said, "We need the assistance now. We can't wait until 2008." We don't need that long to study this issue. Local politicians know what the problem is. The government ministries have all the numbers. They know what the problem is: The services that municipalities are expected to deliver cost more than they have the ability to pay. It is that simple. The North Bay Nugget said, "The province doesn't need 18 months to study the problem. It's well documented already. What the province needs is a solution, and one before the next provincial election, not after."

You know, there have been a lot of people talking about this problem over the past few years, and the need to fix it. But in all that talking I can't find anyone, not a single person, who has asked for an 18-month review. The St. Catharines Standard said, "It appears that Dalton McGuinty's re-election strategy is to commission studies of potentially contentious issues, with them due to be delivered well into the term of the next government." I think that is unacceptable. It's unfair to make municipalities and ratepayers wait for relief until after the provincial general election just to avoid a campaign issue. In comparison, David Crombie's Who Does What panel in 1996 took only seven months and Anne Golden's GTA Task Force in 1995 took only 11 months. The Liberal government has already had three years to solve this problem. Instead, they have pointed fingers and whined about how difficult it is, and during that time the cost of delivering local services has continued to increase, and the municipalities' need has grown. Now they want another 18 months.

Roger Anderson, the past president of AMO, warned the Liberal government in the pre-budget consultations, "The longer we wait, the more it will cost us in lost opportunity and investment in core municipal responsibilities such as transit, transportation and essential water and waste water infrastructure." When the government announced the review, he said that 18 months was longer than he would have preferred, and that he would work very hard to shorten that period. My objective here this morning with this resolution is to help Roger Anderson, the former president of AMO, in achieving that goal just to make that time line shorter.

It has been over six weeks since the announcement of the review, and we haven't even heard any news about the appointing committee. If the Liberals would stop trying to bury things until after the election and work on it, they could have made significant progress by now. Obviously, the people cannot start work before they're appointed, and they can after they are appointed. So let's get on with the appointing and get on with the work being done.

Today, I'm calling on the Liberals to pass this resolution and take action to help municipalities and ratepayers now. I'm sure that every member of the Liberal Party will support this resolution, because it just speaks to improving the quality of service that the province can provide, and the timing of providing that service.

Since it was announced without any firm criteria of what they were looking for, I'm sure there was not one provincial Liberal at the AMO conference, at the announcement, who knew why there was 18 months -- whether 12 would have been sufficient or whether six would have been sufficient. I'm sure that now, when they have looked at the facts, they will be happy to support this resolution, to make sure that it can be done as expeditiously as possible.

Don't let more seniors give up their homes just because they can't afford to pay their taxes. And that literally is happening in the province of Ontario. When the tax bills go out and they see dramatic increases that the municipalities must charge, there are seniors in this province who figure out their income and their expenses, and they have to give up their homes and move into other accommodations because they can no longer support the municipalities' share of their homes.

Don't let our municipal infrastructure continue to deteriorate because municipalities can't afford to fix it. Again, all municipalities, when they are doing their budgets, have their needs in front of them, and then they have to go through the process of trying to define which ones could wait another year without causing great detriment, because they can't do all that needs to be done. They need help from the province of Ontario. Don't let another municipal budget go by without balancing the delivery of services with the ability to pay and providing real relief to municipalities and municipal taxpayers.

Finally, as I was driving into the city this morning -- and this is not about the delivery of services -- there was a story on the news that spoke to the Provincial Offences Act and the need to go before a justice of the peace in order to have a case heard. The reason I bring up that, Mr. Speaker -- and I know you want me to speak to the topic -- is because the Provincial Offences Act revenues were part of the transition in the realignment of services. The municipalities get that to help pay for the social services they are responsible for. Now, this morning, I hear that because of the lack of the appointing of JPs by the present government, the municipalities stand to lose up to half a billion dollars in provincial revenues to help pay their bills. And what's more, even people who plead guilty to traffic offences under the Provincial Offences Act are in fact going to court and not worrying about it, because chances are their case will not be heard and they won't have to pay the penalty for their infraction of the law.

I think this is so important. It is not appropriate to leave that to a review for 18 months, and no changes will be made to that problem for 18 months. I think it is just unacceptable. We don't have a time line, but that's why I think we need to get on with getting this review done, so the problem can be solved on behalf of all taxpayers in Ontario, those who are paying too much, and also all the taxpayers who are now not going to have to pay for their infraction of the law, and I think they should.

With that, I hope everyone in the House will vote for this, because it does deal with good government and good services to the people of Ontario.