Federation of Canadian Municipalities President, Basil Stewart,writes an excellent letter in the Ottawa Citizen (MPs must not offload responsibilities to cities, Ottawa Citizen, Thursday Aug. 26, 2009). He expresses concern that the federal government will attempt to balance its budget on the backs of municipal property tax payers.
The same issue also exists at the provincial level; a double whammy to the municipal tax payer. It is evident that the various levels of government fail to cooperated and provide longer term solutions to problems that affect them all. Instead we see announcements of band-aid financing that provides short term fixes that make individual governments and politicians look good.
Added to this, in Ottawa we see municipal councillors and provincial ministers sparing with each other about important municipal issues like storm drains and sewers as they try to position themselves as possible candidates in the 2010 mayoralty campaign. In the meantime they fail to address these important issues in a cooperative and constructive manner.
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