Aurora Mayor Tom Mrakas is rallying municipalities to join him in calling on the provincial and federal governments to redistribute a portion of the taxes from house sales to local governments.
The provincial government collects a land transfer tax on new houses sold, and the federal government collects GST, with both putting the money in their respective collective revenue funds. Mrakas first made the call at Aurora's committee of the whole meeting on Nov. 5, and has since circulated the motion to all other Ontario municipalities. Several, including Woodstock and Brantford, have since passed motions supporting Mrakas’ campaign.
“Essentially, this is our money,” said Mrakas. "It’s our residents’ money. It’s our community’s money and we’re just saying, give us a percentage of our community’s money so we can build the infrastructure that’s needed for our community.”
In the 2023-24 financial year, the provincial government collected $3.54 billion in land transfer tax, having collected $4.43 billion in 2022-23 and $5.83 billion in 2021-22. Nina Ioussoupova, a spokesperson for the Canada Revenue Agency, said because tax filings for GST are not split into specific commodities, "it is not possible to determine how much GST/HST is collected in respect of a specific commodity."
“That’s a lot of money,” said Mrakas. “There is a lot of money there that could be redistributed and once again, it’s not about us getting all of it, it’s about getting a percentage of it, that could help us have predictable funding.”
Mrakas was elected to the Association of Municipalities of Ontario's board of directors during its annual conference in Ottawa last August, with Mrakas saying he would be advocating for the way municipalities receive infrastructure funding to be "restructured."
Municipal finances were a key issue at the conference, with other political parties promising a "new deal" for stable municipal funding, while, the province announced a $400-million application intake for infrastructure that allows for new housing, part of an ongoing $1-billion municipal housing infrastructure program.
“You can't expect municipalities to grow if the funding is not there for us to build the infrastructure that's needed for that growth,” Mrakas told AuroraToday previously.
Mrakas said he has received positive feedback on the pitch from “colleagues across the province,” as well as members of the building and real estate industries.
“They all think this is a good compromise and good idea to bring forward, and hopefully the province and the federal government see that this makes sense and is probably a good solution to the problem," added Mrakas.
A provincial Ministry of Finance spokesperson said in an email statement that the minister “does not speculate on funding policy and decisions, so we cannot answer this question.”
But they did point to pots of funding for municipalities that the province is increasing, including spending $100 million more in Ontario Municipal Partnership Fund over the next two years, bringing total funding provided through this program to $600 million by 2026.
