Dear editor,
One has to wonder about the Comox Valley Common Sense, a self-appointed group concerned about “fiscal responsibility” who are going to tell the rest of us who to vote for.
My curiosity goes beyond their lack of willingness to be transparent and say who they are, or how they can be so oblivious to the arrogance in assuming voters need their unsolicited advice.
They state in their media messages that federal and provincial governments have reduced taxes while local governments have increased taxes and spent money well above the rate of growth of population.
They conclude that this is caused by local government not sticking to their core functions and a lack of fiscal responsibility.
This explanation is presented as simple and easy to understand; it is after all just “common sense.” With a little bit of analysis one can see that the causes of rising local government spending and taxes are a little bit more complicated.
Let’s start with the comparison to federal and provincial governments.
It is true that personal and corporate income taxes have been reduced by both senior levels of government. However, at the same time these governments’ budget deficits have ballooned. Instead of paying now we will be paying later.
Local governments have to balance their budgets because they are not allowed to run budget deficits. Senior government have all sorts of revenue sources: sales taxes, resource revenues and gaming to name a few. Local governments have very few revenue sources other than property taxes.
Federal and provincial governments have been downloading and cutting services that have negatively impacted our communities. Local governments have been left to deal with the problems and increased costs of these decisions.
Two examples that come to mind are policing and housing.
Local governments have been absorbing a larger and larger share of policing costs. Courtenay now picks up 90% of the cost of policing; not long ago it was 50%.
Federal government stopped investing in social and affordable housing twenty years ago. Provincial governments closed down mental health institutions 15 years ago without providing the
community based housing and support people needed.
These decisions have resulted in a growing homeless population in our community.
So if local governments are not allowed to run deficits, and senior levels of government have been offloading costs and responsibilities, how in the world will local government costs and taxes not rise?
Cut back on police services? Sit back and ignore growing problems of homelessness?
The Common Sense group state that they support a deep water intake project at Comox Lake and linking the North Island highway to Veterans memorial parkway. These are two very big and expensive multi-million-dollar infrastructure projects.
Valley governments are already faced with large unfunded future infrastructure costs to repair, maintain and eventually replace existing infrastructure.
Estimates put this amount well over $250 million. Add a few hundred million more for the new hospital.
Presumably if local government taxes are to be reduced and the “common sense” infrastructure projects are to go ahead how will it be paid for? Are there other infrastructure projects like the hospital, road repair, bike lanes that they want to cut in order to pay for their pet projects?
The “common sense” approach of asking for more infrastructure without a plan to pay for the maintenance and replacement of what exists will likely result in higher taxes.
The answer to responsible funding of infrastructure lies with better land use planning and conservation.
Land use planning that stops sprawl development, encourages infill and denser development would reduce the amount of infrastructure needed and spread the cost of maintenance and replacement of the infrastructure we already have over a larger tax base.
Water and land conservation measures that protect watersheds and water quality, and reduce consumption would reduce the need for new water infrastructure. Use of green infrastructure techniques instead of traditional curb and gutter methods reduces long term infrastructure costs and conserves the environment.
While it is likely that there are ways local governments could be more cost effective in the delivery of local government services, the drivers of increasing costs have little to do with irresponsible fiscal management.
This common sense group needs to do their homework about the issues before they hand out any more unwanted advice.
David Stapley,
Royston
