Here’s an idea: tell water and sewer utilities to levy sufficient charges to cover the cost of capital improvements and replacement of infrastructure. Then the federal and provincial governments can put their money into real infrastructure projects such as twinning the trans-Canada highway in northern Ontario and BC. We ought to be ashamed of the fact that Mexico has more sensible highway systems than we do.
Ontario and Ottawa are announcing up to $1 billion to help municipalities in the province build infrastructure for more homes.
The money will go to municipalities that do not collect development charges for things like roads, bridges and water systems.
Can your population at present afford that?
Government Debt Per CapitaUnited States: Total national government debt per person exceeds $112,000 to $119,000 USD.Canada: Total government debt (combining federal and provincial levels) averages roughly $47,000 to $76,000 CAD/USD per person depending on the specific calculation and inclusion of provincial liabilities.
The US is significantly more in debt that Canada.
Let me rephrase that: does your population (taken as a whole) have the ability to pay more money out of their paychecks for this without feeling a pinch that they really don’t want to or can’t afford?
I can tell you the primary problem with this particular appropriation. Maintaining roadways, specifically, should be financed by the taxation collected via gas purchase. However, while Canada DOES tax gasoline, the money mostly goes elsewhere, and would likely increase your blood pressure to know specifically where.
This is a common sense issue. Those who purchase gasoline are the primary users, and primary contributors to why the roads require maintenance, so it makes sense that the lion’s share of costs should fall to them as a main benefactor to their upkeep. Instead, in Canada, the primary financing for roadways comes from property and general taxes on a municipal level. It’s just a convoluted way to approach a perpetual expense.
At one point, Chrétien was going to collect tolls on roadways in the country. Oh not for road maintenance. To extort more money for laundering.
does mexican highway system include the human wind chimes?
dont be envious of viva liva mehico.
https://smartcdn.gprod.postmedia.digital/nationalpost/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/mexico-3.jpg?w=300
Doncha love it when government levies an entirely duplicate tax on top of taxes you already pay for infrastructure? Where did all the $$$$$ go that they’ve been collecting for infrastructure for decades and decades?
This is the biggest problem that Canada faces…..a federal government that overtaxes and then sticks its bloody nose into places it doesn’t belong.
I beg to differ, Joey B. The biggest problem Canada faces is its chicken-shit / sheep-brained electorate.
The biggest problem Canada faces is 3.75 makers for every taker (useless parasite civil servant). Canada is a life support system for a bloated leviathan governmental overburden.
Now do the math with those who are employed by private companies that contract to governments, and those at lower pay grades that receive assistance from the government. And roll in the 41% of Canadians who do no work at all.
We’re screwed.
How about auditing and measurements of civic agencies to determine value given for product received. There are no competive tools to ensure some manner of determining worth. Just gouge, gouge, gouge. Heard a stat on a USA home renovation radio show. 42% of the cost of a multi unit dwelling goes to compliance requirements
Don’t you love spending billions on infrastructure to ensure that our replacements are comfortable? If not for mass immigration we wouldn’t need all this infrastructure. This infrastructure will only benefit future immigrants. Screw that.
So you don’t have children? And if you do, would it be nice for them to have a decently working infrastructure?
Might I posit that spending on infrastructure is a better use of money than oh, say, drag shows in Bangladesh?
Did you read the part about not needing it but for mass migration? A quarter of the population are immigrants. We would not need to build entire new cities but for those people. I have two kids, just enough to replace myself and my wife, no new infrastructure required,
I’m so sorry Rusty. I read this and also know about your infrastructure being in a rather bad state of disrepair. I also know that those immigrants are how you’ve messaged your GDP, so it’s unlikely your government is going to get rid of all of them — so it may be your two kids living where they were going to put the immigrants.
Silly me for thinking that.
By the way: you’ve been a bit out of sorts today; maybe a nice steak sandwich made by the lady of your house would make you feel better.
IMO as a “maker” (private industry) and a home owner in Ottawa with children who have recently become home owners, and as one who follows local politics.
Double edged sword here:
– Should the municipality actually recover the infrastructure costs of adding new neighbourhoods and sub-divisions, the costs associated to those new homes would be astronomical. Should new homes not be built the resale market would be horrendously expensive.
-As a homeowner putting out C$5-6K a year in property taxes, I can resent my taxes not being used to keep my infrastructure maintained but used to underwrite the extension of the infrastructure to new areas.
So my taxes helped underwrite my children’s home purchase. My taxes did not help with local infrastructure not being able to handle the recent storms that flooded many in our area.
There is no right answer here. The problem should never have been allowed to develop, local politicians kept kicking maintenance down the road and not making it a priority and spending money on “social” services and other wasteful crap (O-Train). Finding a municipal board with the cojones to stop wasteful spending is not going to happen.
What I’d like as a taxpayer is to increase the percentage of the infrastructure cost being passed to the new sub-divisions, a decrease in the operation costs of silly sh*t like refurbishing the Byward Market and dump all the make work business groups (BIA’s) that cannot support themselves. Less social or absolutely not needed projects. I’d pay a little more to move more money into maintenance, as long as the other crap is cut back too.
No easy answers, tough times ahead. Either we cut back on crap and do infrastructure and maintenance or we borrow ourselves into deeper debt. Ottawa city council is liberal, I don’t hold much hope, they like their boondoggles.
Everybody always wants somebody else to pay.
Mist Canadians are a bunch of spoiled rotten brats who need to be sissy slapped.
Who are these Mist Canadians? Is their identity foggy? Do they work as lighthouse keepers?
Or did you spell “moist” wrong? Many of these people are all wet, after all.
I’m curious. Does Mexico have highways running through any terrain that resembles northwestern Ontario?
There is only 1 taxpayer, and he’s already being gouged by all 3 levels of government.