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The bulletin is prepared by John Sewell, the site manager, with the assistance and under the guidance of the advisory committee. It is published monthly, and is being sent to a wide range of people across Canada. Past copies of the bulletin will be archived in this section of the site.

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Bulletin No. 18, July 2001
LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT BULLETIN – NO. 18, July 2001

The purpose of this bulletin is to focus debate on the need to increase
local self government in Canada and to help local communities achieve more
autonomy. The local self government web site is http://www.localselfgovt.org

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In this issue:
1. Striking out in Montreal
2. Financial feast and municipal famine
3. Subscribe to the Bulletin
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1. Striking out in Montreal

At the end of June the Quebec Supreme Court threw out the application by Montreal municipalities attacking Bill 170, which forcibly amalgamated them. There was nothing in Judge Maurice Lagace’s decision that would give any hope to those opposed to the Bill – it was as depressing as the judgements by Ontario courts authorizing the Toronto amalgamations four years ago. Judge Lagace carefully outlined the 13 objections lodged against the legislation and then, just as carefully, dismissed each of them.

Henry Aubin, columnist with the Montreal Gazette, has done a telling critique of Lagace’s decision. In his column of June 29, Aubin writes:

`Lagace indicated yesterday that the [provincial] government possessed a constitutional right to pass whatever laws it pleased because it had won the last election. Under that narrow constitutional definition, he might be right.

`Yet during the election campaign the PQ never said it would do this.

`In fact, several weeks before voting day in 1998, l’Actualite magazine published an interview with Lucien Bouchard, then the PQ premier, who stated, “I do not think the one-island-one-city formula is the solution.” Voters had every reason to believe, then, that the PQ if re-elected would not impose a Bill 170-type merger on Montreal Island. Some mandate.

`The fact that the PQ was not the party that won the most votes cross Quebec also chips away at the idea that it wears some kind of moral aura justifying its municipal revolution.

`On Montreal Island, this lack of electoral mandate is especially obvious. Voters elected the PQ to only seven of the island’s 30 seats. In the suburbs, where opposition to the merger is the most intense, the PQ won no seats at all.
`One of the premises of democracy is that governments try to serve the public in a pleasing manner in the hope that it will re-elect them. Yet with the island suburbs that premise does not hold: the PQ can override the popular will with electoral impunity, since it never wins these suburban seats anyway.

`When five suburbs tried last fall to play the democratic game as the PQ has elsewhere established it, by using referendums to indicate public opinion, Quebec used legalistic pretexts for ignoring the results. It’s worth recalling those merger foes’ mega-landslide margins of victory: in Anjou they won 94 per cent of votes and in Montreal West, Baie d”Urfe, Westmount and Hampstead, 97 to 99 per cent.

`Hostility to mergers also pervades the province as a whole. In an Infas Inc. poll last month, 77 per cent of respondents in the five–to-be merged areas said Quebec was unjustified in proceeding with Bill 170.

`A further premise of democracy is that a legislature will debate bills before they become law. For a bill of this significance to citizens, many days’ debate would be appropriate. The government gave the opposition 60 minutes. Throughout the process, public consultation has been derisory. So the record could not be much clearer that this merger legislation, even if constitutional, is an assault on democratic culture.

`This is true not just for the brutal way in which Bill 170 has been enacted, but also for its effect on civic life in years to come. By expunging local municipal councils and replacing them with megacity councils that are far more distant from citizens, it will debilitate that level of government that until now has offered the closest thing to participatory democracy.

`All this, Legace’s judgement would lead one to believe, is perfectly legal. But it is also perfectly at odds with the traditional notion of citizenship.

`In a real democracy, citizenship involves much more than just voting every few years and then going to sleep until the next election. The Lagace ruling blesses civic somnolence. Those suburbs that are challenging the judgement have high principle on their side.’

In his July 2 column Aubin analyses another aspect of Judge Lagace’s decision, namely that the amalgamated structures proposed in Bill 170 were based on many studies and `numerous recommendations.’ But as Aubin points out, `All of the studies looked at one-island, one-city centralization. All rejected it…[T]he government barged past these studies, ignoring their unanimous recommendations against municipal monolithism.’

Aubin’s articles can be found at www.montrealgazette.com

The decision of Judge Lagace (in French at http://www.soquij.qc.ca/fusions.doc ) has been appealed and will probably be heard in September.

2. Financial feast and municipal famine

Statistics Canada has recently documented the extraordinary decline of local government finances in Canada. In its report published on June 13, Stats Can notes that for the fourth consecutive year federal, provincial and territorial governments have very significant surpluses, much larger than last year.

This happy state of affairs does not exist for local governments. Collectively they posted a deficit of $443 million in 2000. The previous year they had a surplus of $2.5 billion.

Local government deficits were posted in five provinces and all three territories. The largest deficits were in Ontario where local governments spent $889 million more than the revenue available to them. That deficit is set against the $428 million surplus available to local governments in Alberta, beneficiaries of provincial policies to transfer a portion of gasoline taxes.

What is disquieting about these figures is that Ontario municipalities are required by law to have a balanced budget. Many municipalities facing enormous financial pressures because of downloading and the loss of control of the property tax system have been enticed by the Ontario government to cover a budgeted deficit with a provincial loans to create a balanced budget. It would be interesting to see whether charges could be laid against provincial officials for seducing municipal authorities to break the law with these loans.

Municipalities in Ontario are subject to severe financial pressures not because they have experienced unusually bad management during the past year or two, but because of the financial burden thrust upon them by provincial policy.

Stats Can also notes that property taxes, local government’s main revenue source, have risen while transfer payments from provincial governments have declined in the last three years. This has occurred even though federal transfer payments to provincial governments have increased. Cities and municipalities may be the engines of the economy, but for that they receive no reward. The federal and provincial governments swim in surpluses, and federal transfers to the provincial governments are increasing, but municipal governments (except in Alberta) are drowning in deficits.

The full report has much useful data. It can be seen at http://www.statcan.ca , and follow the links to `The Daily’ for June 13, 2001.

3. Subscribe to this bulletin

The bulletin is sent, at no cost, to about 1400 individuals involved directly or indirectly in local government in Canada. The next bulletin will be available in September. We invite you to subscribe by going to the ‘Bulletin’ tab of the web site http://www.localselfgovt.org and following the instructions. More information about the sponsors of the bulletin, a library of relevant and useful documents, and an archives of past bulletins, can be found on our web site. We appreciate your comments, your feedback (to j.sewell@on.aibn.com ), and items of interest that you wish to share with us and others who visit the web site.