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This
is the same government that recently acknowledged Canada
has a $130-billion infrastructure deficit to pay for road
upgrades, bridges and water and sewer projects from
coast-to-coast, said Coun. Denis Saudino.
The
federal government would help a lot more Canadians by
diverting every penny of the proposed GST reduction to
municipalities and mandating them to spend every penny to
upgrade infrastructure, Saudino said.
"The
average citizen won't even notice" a further
one-per-cent reduction in the GST, but the billions of
dollars generated would assist municipal leaders across
the country who are struck in a quandary figuring out how
to find the cash to pay for crumbling roads and bridges,
he said.
Over
the past two decades, the federal government went from
paying almost all of the costs to build and maintain
roads, bridges and water treatment plants to not spending
a penny, he said.
The
feds downloaded all the responsibilities and costs to the
provincial government, which have in turn downloaded the
costs to municipal taxpayers, who can't afford it, he
said.
"Rather
than score political points, they can make a huge
impact" and reduce the GST by another percentage
point, but hand it all to municipalities to pay for
infrastructure upgrades, he said.
"I
think we have a very, very serious problem across this
country (crumbling infrastructure) and people just don't
realize how serious it is," said Saudino.
If
billions of dollars aren't directed to repairing crumbling
infrastructure in the near future, roads, bridges and
water plants across the country are going to start falling
apart and municipalities simply don't have the money to
repair them, Saudino told city council.
Coun.
Michael Doody agreed the municipalities need help to
replace crumbling infrastructure and noted the Federation
of Canadian Municipalities will be forwarding a motion in
the next two weeks demanding all money generated by
reducing the GST one percentage point be diverted to
municipalities across the country.
Flaherty
has shown no indication he's willing to do this, but
influential politicians like Hazel McCallion, the popular
longtime mayor of Mississauga, are leading the fight and
there's a good chance Flaherty will have no choice but to
change his mind, Doody said.
Source
:
Timmins
Daily Press - Timmins, Ontario, Canada, dated 30/11/2007
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