Publié le 18/12/2007

Open letter to deputy Vallée and perfect Rondeau

For several years now, your governments have been downloading program requirements upon municipalities causing unacceptably high tax increases upon the population.The Québec government’s various ministries work independently of each other, trying to meet separate objectives. Collectively, they force high costs for taxpayers everywhere with no assessment capability or concern for affordability.

A property in our village, for example, assessed at 100 000 $ in 2005 has, for 2007, been forced to pay municipal and school taxes at a 30 percent higher level. Given an imminent substantial municipal tax increase and a guaranteed school tax increase of at least 9 %, this will escalate further for 2008. Foolish, technically unsupported mandatory 2 year/4year septic tank pumping requirements, unaffordable fire security policies, unreasonably high municipal election support costs, rapidly growing MRC bureaucratic costs (including union-wage staff), unionization of municipal staff, unaffordable recycling programs, escalating-garbage elimination costs due to late government planning/leadership, and much more, are being forced simultaneously upon us and are financially impairing our communities.

Forced/expensive, too frequent, water testing of municipal water systems, and of restaurants serviced by their own wells, is no technically substantiated ... but rather, is only politically/emotionally justified as “Walkerton”, Recently, for example, Health Canada assured me that monthly deep-well water turbidity testing is not required. Yet, Quebec restaurants in our rural municipalities continue to be forced to do so and to pay for it.

We are unable to acceptably deal with local priorities such as road maintenance/improvements, water systems, employee benefits, cultural events, village appearance, etc. No longer do we see acceptable tax increases a, or below, three to four per cent as we used to experience. Unpaid tax levels are at the highest ever in most of our communities. Debt is increasing. In our village, we can hardly find the money to evaluate our water systems, let alone repair/improve hem.

In the MRC-VG, we have 17 mayors and 102 councilors representing 20 000 permenent residents. Given a similar ratio, the City of Ottawa would have more than 5 000 councilors. For this reason, there is far too much cost and bureaucracy to allow for efficient an effective decision-making. Well-meaning community representatives do not have the will, skill or courage to deal with the downloading and cost escalation. Taxpayers are poorly informed, affordability is never verified and permission to spend is rarely asked. Town Hall meetings are rarely held because mayors and councilors are often too afraid to do so.

Mayors and councilors, almost everywhere, are afraid to speak up. Reports of the MRC-VG’s monthly meetings show that mayors vote unanimously “yes” for almost every spending decision. At the end of the year, because of no spending forecast ability, it is too late to keep tax increases down for the following year. Each mayor is afraid to “rock the boat”. They do not demonstrate that they have the will, or skill, to evaluate affordability, as defined by the taxpayers, not by themselves.

Rarely do MRC’s contest the government’s spending demands. They report to the ministers that “… all is OK.” Witness the Waste Management plans submitted to the minister of Environment ... very few, if any, will meet the objectives, an, if so, not without huge cost. Due to lack of leadership, solutions to landfill alternatives are late and, even if a modern solution was proposed to the Quebec government, it is not apparent that there exists any expertise to evaluate it. Having left MRC’s and municipalities alone to find separate/different solutions, and with nothing final in sight, communities are threatened with 50 000 $ fines if they don’t shut their landfills down by the end of 2009. Why do our citizens deserve this treatment ? The cost to defeat, hopefully, the Danford Lake landfill proposal been unnecessary and enormous.

MRC’s often do not represent the people’s view. They are not demonstrating that they are servants of the public, but, rather, arrogantly act in a manner requiring their citizens to be subservient to them. Lack of care/ability of the Quebec Liberal government to assess cost affordability is also a great detriment to our communities. Citizen coalition formations and taxpayer revolts are becoming more frequent.

In our area of West Quebec, you are our political leaders. Indeed, you both have difficult challenges and the public is measuring your leadership capabilities based on the results they expect from you. Concerned taxpayers everywhere would greatly appreciate being informed as to whether, or not, you also feel that there is a serious over-burden of taxation, and, more importantly, as to what serious action you are immediatly taking to repair this situation, on their behalf.

Thank you.

Respectfully,

Steve Connoly
Councilor
Low, Quebec.