The towns of Newmarket and Aurora and municipalities beyond say they are facing financial hardship, and the next provincial government needs to step up to address it.
Municipalities across the province have raised alarms with funding concerns to address provincial growth and fund infrastructure. The Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) has called on the province to undertake a social and economic prosperity review to help figure out a way to sustainably fund cities and towns.
Newmarket Mayor John Taylor said significant change is needed — and he is not currently hearing much about it on the campaign trail.
“I can tell you what I haven’t heard is a comprehensive plan from any party to talk about the funding relationship between the municipalities and the province and the need for fundamental change,” he said. “We’re living in a period of time where, 20 to 30 years from now, there’s a very good chance we’re going to look back and say, ‘That’s when cities became financially unsustainable.’”
AMO has raised issues for the past few years of its funding, particularly after municipalities collectively lost billions in charges paid by developers with the Progressive Conservative government’s Bill 23, the More Homes Built Faster Act. Now, the organization is asking the province for additional funding to help make up for that and fund future infrastructure. It is also asking for the province to take less from property taxes into provincial programming so municipalities can better fund their own communities.
“Municipalities are the foundation of Ontario’s economic prosperity and quality of life,” AMO president Robert Jones said in a news release in advance of the election. “But the funding arrangements that municipal governments rely on to deliver services and infrastructure are broken. Ontarians should demand that all provincial parties commit to the necessary actions to keep our communities safe, affordable, and prosperous.”
Among other issues, AMO is advocating for provincial investment in social housing and addiction support to help address rising homelessness.
The funding concern also prompted Aurora Mayor Tom Mrakas to start a push among municipalities, advocating for upper levels of government to let municipalities collect taxes from property transfers. The Town of Newmarket is now supporting that motion as well.
“We need all levels of government to work towards a solution that doesn’t just look at property taxes being the only way to pay for critical infrastructure in our communities,” Mrakas has said on his blog. “This motion ensures we have the resources to build and maintain the infrastructure that keeps our municipalities running smoothly without having to raise property taxes to do so.”
NewmarketToday sought interviews with incumbent Newmarket-Aurora Progressive Conservative candidate Dawn Gallagher Murphy and Liberal Chris Ballard, but did not receive responses before publication deadline. In the case of Green candidate David Jakubiec, a spokesperson said he is not making media responses or appearances in this election.
In a news release at the start of the election, the Progressive Conservatives promised to add an extra $5 billion to the Building Ontario Fund for a total of $8 billion toward municipal infrastructure projects and added $2 billion to the Municipal Housing Infrastructure Program, and increasing the Community Sport and Recreation Fund by $300 million.
The Ontario Green Party platform, the only fully costed platform released in this election, promises a “new deal for municipalities.” It suggests granting municipalities autonomy to implement revenue tools, uploading costs from municipalities to the province like transit funding, community housing and shelters, and providing dedicated and ongoing funding to municipalities to address mental health and addictions.
The NDP has also promised to upload responsibilities from municipalities, including taking on financial responsibility for shelters, affordable housing, and homelessness prevention. It also proposes 50/50 cost sharing for transit with municipalities.
Newmarket-Aurora NDP candidate Denis Heng said it is unfair for the province and previous governments to have downloaded services to municipalities without giving them the appropriate funding to succeed.
“This is something that needs to be corrected,” Heng said, adding more sustainable funding should be provided to municipalities. “We’re at a point where we have to start now changing the status quo.”
During a debate Feb. 14, Ballard said there is a need to figure out how to fund municipal infrastructure and take a lot of costs off the shoulders of taxpayers.
“We know that growth doesn’t pay for growth,” he said, adding development charges do not currently cover the cost of putting a new house down in the area. “We need a new deal for municipalities … We have to reduce the burden on municipal taxpayers and on municipalities.”
On the Liberal side, Leader Bonnie Crombie has promised to entirely eliminate development charges on “middle-class housing,” usually paid out to municipalities by developers, and then find a new funding model for municipalities.
Whether cutting or eliminating development charges, Taylor said he feels it is misguided. He said it would prove costly and questioned whether it would reduce housing costs, saying developers will charge whatever the market will bear.
“The amount it would cost the province to replace the lost (development charge) dollars in every municipality in Ontario would be massive,” he said, adding it would wrack up to tens of billions of dollars across the province.
On the idea of uploading, Taylor said he is generally supportive of the concept, though it would have to be examined depending on the area. He said something like transit is quite costly and would make sense for the province to take on, but that municipalities are well able at this point to deliver on social housing if they are funded enough.
He said a multi-party task force is needed to address funding for municipalities specifically.
“We need to sit down and talk about what adequate funding looks like,” he said, adding residents call their municipalities home, not their province. “They want beautiful parks and they want great roads and they want great community centres. We deliver that, but we’re finding it harder and harder.”