The Subsidy Cascade
Let’s play a game. I’ll write about municipal taxes and utility fees, and you try to stay awake. Yes, It’s that season again, in which a tale of two certainties, Death and Taxes, should be revised to Death by Thinking about Taxes, Followed by Taxes. Notwithstanding, we will now add our contribution to the subject … Read more
A New Year of Tax Fraud
Municipalities will be ringing in the New Year by ringing the cash registers, once again collecting their revenue from one slice of citizens, and using it to subsidize another. Their New Year’s resolution should be to stop this fraudulent practice, and bring tax fairness to forms of urban development that are economically and environmentally sustainable. … Read more
Commuting for the Common Good
Downtown London has the John Labatt Centre (the “jail”, I think it’s known as), and Hamilton its Copps Coliseum. Sundry dreams of replacing Kitchener’s Aud, and inevitably the subject of a location for it, contain the seeds of a dilemma: build on the outskirts where land is cheap, in a sea of surface parking, or … Read more
Healthy Skepticism
Ontario’s rookie municipal politicians have a new sandbox to play in. Its size? Four years long by whatever latitude municipal staff and re-elected incumbents will allow them. New councillors and mayors will receive orientation and training, and will be schooled in the reasoning and dictates of policies and procedures: in short, why things are the … Read more
