Former mayor says Plante’s ideas for new tax revenue won’t work

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Former Montreal mayor Gerard Tremblay doesn’t have a crystal ball, but he says he has a déjà vu about current mayor Valerie Plante’s attempts to give the Quebec government new revenue streams. increase.

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“We’re repeating the same thing,” Tremblay said of last week’s forum on city taxes, hosted by the Plante administration to discuss budget issues and propose new types of new taxes and fees. The government is currently planning a summit on local government taxation in the spring, with the aim of gaining broad support for the demands it will make to state governments when negotiating new financial agreements in 2024.

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“We know the bottom line,” Tremblay, who served as mayor for 11 years, said of the process. He added that every administration in the last 25 years had put its hat on Quebec City to beg for money. “It becomes a grocery list with additional demands and the government gives up a little bit.”

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Tremblay said he felt nostalgic when he read the book. A 37-page document prepared by the Plante administration for last week’s forum He explained that property taxes are inadequate to cover Montreal’s responsibilities as a big city, and weighed the pros and cons of adding new taxes and fees to water, garbage, parking, and development. I’m here.

“It’s a remake of everything that’s been said,” says Tremblay. “It updates information we’ve been publishing for the last 20 years. But there’s nothing new there.”

In fact, this summer marked the 20th anniversary of the Montreal Summit. This forum, attended by his 4,000 participants, organized by the Tremblay administration during his first six months, will define priority projects for the new megacities and new ways of creating wealth. Higher-level government representatives were involved, he notes. It culminated in a “contract” signed by the Montreal and Quebec governments, which was to secure a stable source of funding to support the city’s role as a metropolis in Quebec.

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Tremblay, who was a minister in the Quebec Liberal Cabinet years before becoming mayor, and other Canadian mayors were also able to negotiate a reduction in the federal excise tax on municipal gasoline.

But 20 years later, Montreal is still struggling financially, and Tremblay said it was time to try something new.The answer, he argues, is Define who is responsible for health, education, housing, and other areas at the federal, state, and local levels, and redistribute existing tax revenues so that each can meet its responsibilities. to

“It’s not a new tax,” Tremblay said. Higher-level governments collect enough income and sales taxes to share with local governments, he said.

“Quebec says it has no money, but it has $3 billion to give[Quebecers]$400 checks and $600 checks,” said Tremblay. The prime minister and his coalition government of Avenir Quebec said the money promised to help Quebecers deal with inflation.

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“Okay, you can.

Last year, Tremblay collaborated with author and attorney Claude Laferriere on L’Expérience Tremblay, a book that explains the inadequacy of property taxes in financing Canadian municipalities. The book argues that municipalities must ultimately be recognized in the Canadian Constitution as a level of government with a defined distribution of jurisdiction and taxation powers.

Tremblay says it is not currently seeking constitutional approval for the city. Because it seems like a dead language to the upper echelons of government.

“It’s a solution, but it’s not going to happen,” he said. But he argues that without opening the Constitution, the three levels could define their respective responsibilities and allocate funds accordingly.

Otherwise, Montreal will be like a hamster on wheels, constantly working to get more money from the state and never doing enough.

lgyulai@postmedia.com