Canada - PM's blatant snub of Canada's cities

Since he became prime minister nearly 20 months ago, Stephen Harper has done little to dispel the notion that he is a leader who doesn't care about the fate of Canada's major cities. Indeed, Harper constantly rejects requests for help by big-city mayors from across the country, saying cities are the responsibility of provincial governments

To his way of thinking, cities simply aren't his problem.

Thus it came as no surprise that Harper blatantly snubbed Canada's cities in Tuesday's federal throne speech. At least the Conservative leader is consistent in telling cash-strapped cities, with their crumbling roads and other infrastructure, that he's got other plans for the surpluses that Ottawa currently enjoys.

Such an attitude by the national leader is troubling. And it raises serious questions about whether he has turned his back on cities because his Tory party won hardly any seats in large urban ridings.

About 80 per cent of Canadians live in urban areas, but their collective interest, as city-dwellers, was almost entirely ignored in a misguided speech that focused instead on tax cuts and short-term political expediency. That omission hurts the entire country.

Canada's cities generate much of this nation's wealth. But they are struggling under the multiple burden of inadequate funding, crumbling infrastructure, strained services due to population growth and costly highway gridlock. The big cities powering Canada's economy have begun to sputter. Toronto is in the grip of a budget crisis that has already triggered some service cuts and may require more. Other municipalities have dire needs of their own. It is estimated that Canadian cities face a total infrastructure deficit in excess of $100 billion.

Assistance is obviously needed. And Ottawa has money to spare. But rather than using that cash to help desperate municipalities, Harper wants to use it for personal and corporate tax cuts.

In its throne speech, the government indicated it would deliver on a long-standing commitment to trim another one percentage point from the Goods and Services Tax. The GST dropped to six per cent from seven per cent last year. But most Canadians barely noticed.

Ottawa obviously doesn't need that extra penny from the GST. But cities do. The mayors of Canada's 22 biggest cities have unanimously urged Ottawa to transfer one cent of the GST to urban areas. Having a one-cent portion of the GST would pump more than $5 billion each year into Canada's communities, with $400 million going to Toronto.

What the throne speech offered was only vague support for infrastructure projects, such as roads and bridges, and hinted there would be some investment in public transit for environmental reasons. That doesn't begin to address the massive needs of this country's cities. Just blunting those needs will increasingly require service cuts, new user fees and soaring local taxes.

Rather than enjoying any savings from Harper's proposed tax cuts, millions of Canadians living in large urban areas will likely endure far higher municipal taxes due to federal neglect of their communities.

That is the grim irony inherent in this misguided throne speech.