Provincial Property Tax and Wealth Re-Distribution

Many people are not aware that Saint John contributes a disproportionate share of taxes to the province. Often when we read of an Atcon bailout or of millions of dollars in "Economic Development" money being sent to other parts of NB - the lion’s share of that money is being sucked out of Saint John. 

The Equal Opportunity Act has - in the long term – disadvantaged the urban areas of the province in favour of unsustainable areas with multi-generational economic subsidies to pay for it. To understand our current challenges we need to know how many dollars are sent to Fredericton that don't come back? Perhaps the most direct route is to ask the question "how much provincial property tax is taken from SJ, versus the annual 'un-conditional grant' rec'd by the City". The so-called grants, are the vehicle by which this "provincial property tax" is re-distributed by the Province. Help in understanding this financial maneuvering would be a good undertaking for an elected provincial member locally, if he/she really wanted to help constituents understand what is happening. 

Who among our provincial representatives has their eye on the big picture? It's time to remind ourselves and our elected reps at all government levels that there's only one taxpayer here. Why in the hell aren't our MLAs adding something during this intense time of service reductions, pension concerns and budget discussions? It is a well established fact that in New Brunswick, the provincial government has very significant control of municipal government finances. We NEED leadership and co-operation here. Where are Margaret-Ann Blaney, Blaine Higgs, Carl Killen, Trevor Holder, Glen Tait, Dorothy Sheppard, Jim Parrot, on this? They have all been virtually absent from the public debate on Saint John City challenges the past month.

We live with a property taxation system that sucks wealth out of this community and then leaves it to fight among itself to deal with the inadequacy of the situation. The city and its people get beat up by the system and by each other even though we produce the majority of the wealth that supports the rest of the province. This situation also stands in the way of our desire for a stronger URBAN agenda for our future. There is a direct conflict between these two issues; wealth re-distribution to rural areas at the expense of stronger investment in wealth producing and efficient URBAN communities like Saint John. Which politicians are connecting the dots and showing leadership? The days of political reactionary ways must be replaced by visionary leadership if we ever hope to realize our dreams.

Information about where tax is collected and where it is spent may be found here .

Time to follow the money

Interesting day. We now know there will be a special public budget meeting tomorrow, Wednesday Feb. 01, to allow council to make their decisions for the budget and tax rate. There seems to be several views in play as to how we got in this mess and how we get out.

Today I raised the issue of an unfair provincial property taxation system that takes wealth from the economic powerhouse that Saint John is and re-distributes that wealth around the province in the name of Equal Opportunity; others say forcefully that there is also the widely held belief that we are over staffed at City Hall and that there should be serious work done on inefficiencies and productivity before we cut back services in the name of job reductions caused by budget cutbacks, and finally the wider higher minded idea that as a single community stretching from Quispamsis to Grand Bay, we should be under one municipal government.

I hope to help open a discussion over the next several days that will:

evoke a more thoughtful approach to the root causes of our civic woes;

pursue real facts to demonstrate how those things are holding back our Urban dreams;

•  lastly to bring together a broad group who want to take real action to move this community forward with pride and security in a way that allows us to realize our aspirations for Saint John as New Brunswicks' only "true Urban metropolis" as my good friend Kurt Peacock so correctly describes it.

Your ideas, comments, and input could turn this into real action and not just frustrated and angry rhetoric. A chance to improve the results of the next municipal election in the short term and beyond that a real shot at re-designing the way things work in Saint John and New Brunswick to provide a more environmentally, economically, secure, and sustainable way of life.

Taxation Woes

All City of Saint John operations need to be subject to efficiency standards. The burden on home owning taxpayers is out of proportion. The amount of property taxes paid in Saint John by Irving companies and Irving family is huge(go find the numbers if you're interested in the truth and NOT the BS rhetoric that they don't pay); the city does suffer significant wear and tear from the presence of this economic activity. But its NOT the lack of paying taxes that puts us under the gun; its the amount of property tax paid by city businesses of all sizes that is sucked out of the city by the provincial tax system and re-distributed to other "have not" areas that is causing the problems. We are left to fight among ourselves as the economic wealth generated in this place is displaced to subsidize other un-sustainable areas of the province. There in lies the real story! EQUAL OPPORTUNITY has created un-equal challenges for the citizens of Saint John and now we live with civic dis-harmony. Its time to turn the anger in the direction it deserves. We are participating in the act of "killing the goose that laid the golden egg" and that goose is the City of Saint John.