The e-library contains information about issues of local autonomy and local self government.

Those who visit the site are encouraged to suggest documents - speeches, research, legislative initiatives, news items, etc. - which might be added to the library. If you have material that you think should be part of the e-Library, please click `suggest a resource' and follow the instructions.

search   |   show all   |   suggest a resource

Description:
Local Government Bulletin No. 59, September 2005

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 website is: http://www.localgovernment.ca
***
In this bulletin:
1. Tax Shifting
2. New ideas about the prostitution problem
3. Subscribe to the Bulletin
***
1. Tax shifting

One of the most innovative ideas in recent times about property taxes is that this tax should be structured to encourage desirable results and discourage undesired results. It is a simple notion and it runs under the rubric `Tax Shifting.’ Here are some examples of the idea.

If a municipality wants to encourage sustainable structures which reduce greenhouse gas emissions and conserve energy, it could do this by offering a tax reduction for buildings where significant improvements are made in these directions. If a municipality wants to encourage sustainability-oriented businesses as a way to create jobs it can restructure the business tax to favour such businesses by offering lower taxes. If a municipality wants to encourage the retention of culturally important old buildings, it can reduce the property tax payable on them.

The Centre for Integral Economics, a non-profit organization based in Victoria, is the most significant advocate in the country on tax shifting. It claims a mandate “to promote innovative, market-based solutions that reconcile economic prosperity, social justice and environmental integrity.” It seeks to “use the power of market tools and economic policies, to redirect human activities and to create a less wasteful, more balanced society.”

It’s hard to quarrel with a tax system structured to encourage desired outcomes and discourage undesirable outcomes. But too often city council has a policy of wishing to encourage certain goals that its tax load actually discourages. A large part of the problem, of course, is that property tax systems are inevitably creaky and old, not having been seriously reformed in more than a century.


The present property tax system is structured as a disincentive to improvements. If more of the tax were levied on land and less on building, owners would no face the disincentive of higher taxes when they think of renovating and making small additions which increase the value of the property. If owners knew they could get a property tax reduction from making buildings more energy efficient, more would probably do so. Tax shifting has real benefits.

And it is not just property taxes which could be adjusted to create desirable outcomes. The Centre points out that municipalities should also look at the host of other charges levied and tweak them accordingly: user fees, application fees, tolls, parking fees and congestion charges.

One significant problem with these wonderful idea is provincial legislation. When the City of Winnipeg under former Mayor Glenn Murray wished to move ahead with some tax shifting as part of its fiscal program several years ago (see Bulletins 29, 42, 46) the provincial government refused to provide the enabling legislation. Some say that Murray should have taken the time to build up a strong local base of support to help convince provincial officials of the merit of these changes, but whatever the wisdom of that strategy, the fact remains that Winnipeg needed provincial help to implement these changes.

Most other municipalities are in the same kind of relationship with their provincial governments. Provinces have created municipal property tax systems that municipalities are unable to change. Provinces control the minutiae of how tolls and fees can be applied. One useful challenge in the next few years is to get provincial governments to pass enabling legislation which permits tax shifting so that the financial parts of municipal strategy are congruent with the policy parts.

Information on the Centre for Integral Economics and tax shifting strategies can be found at http://www.integraleconomics.org .

2. New ideas about the prostitution problem

Prostitution is a complicated problem, one that cities have not managed to deal with well. It’s an activity that has taken place for millennia although it seems to be undergoing some kind of current reinvigoration to the concern of many city leaders. Prostitution itself is not a criminal offence but soliciting for the purposes of prostitution is.

In some cities body rub parlors are considered to be a social ill, even if councillors too often turn a hypocritical head. Some prevalent activities in the sex trade such as call girls, seem not to get leaders worried. But street prostitution is a lightning rod because it is very visible, and residents in neighbourhoods where it is prevalent complain loudly.

Many who study the subject are urging that a new approach is required, one that recognizes the activity rather than dismissing it as a moral problem that must be pushed to the edges. They seek to deal with the lives of those directly affected. In Vancouver, for instance, the city supports programs which provide mobile health care for sex workers, and a drop-in program which helps sex trade workers find an exit strategy, which, as one can imagine, isn’t easy. Vancouver police sponsor self-defense programs for sex trade workers.

In Toronto, a group has estimated that there are between 600 and 1000 sex trade workers on the streets of suburban Scarborough. Most of them are women, and most of them have addictions, housing problems, and in some case mental health issues. Facilities available to help assist them are limited, which means they face significant risks to their safety, both in terms of health and of violence. Some of these risks are also borne by their customers and other contacts. The cost of keeping a single sex trade worker on the street, given all the costs of policing, the criminal justice system, Children’s Aid, etc, is very high. The cost of offering real assistance to help women get off the street would be much lower, perhaps a third of the cost of continuing on the street. It makes financial sense to help women get off the street – although that argument doesn’t seem to convince many government leaders to start spending the money to do so. .

In Edinburgh, where the Scottish parliament is considering legislation to allow municipalities to establish “tolerance zones” for street soliciting and brothels, an unofficial tolerance zone was recognized where women could solicit without fear of being arrested. This experiment was set up after discussions between the police, the women and local councillors, and it seemed to be a great success – with less violence and less crime. Unfortunately, gentrification came to the area, the municipality was pressured to end the experiment, the toleration zone has disappeared and crime in the area has increased.

In Australia, criminal law is a matter of state rather than federal jurisdiction, and several states have decriminalized prostitution, brothels, and/or street soliciting. In New South Wales street soliciting is banned in certain areas but permitted in others, and in Victoria there is a licensing scheme in place. It appears that these experiments have been a success in that the women are safer and crime in the area is reduced.

Several years ago in the United Kingdom the Home Office helped municipalities experiment with strategies to reduce the nuisance part of street prostitution and to make the activity safer for women. Eleven projects were set up and evaluated. The evaluation concluded that in some cases police crack-downs resulted in prostitutes working longer hours to make the same money and even in increased crime as the sex trade workers turned to cheque fraud, shop lifting, etc. to generate the needed money to feed drug habits. Several projects found that the best results happened when there were fewer restrictions and when women worked together with police and neighbours to find ways reduce bothersome activity in more sensitive areas.

These experiments open interesting opportunities for Canadian municipalities - although the legislative strait jacket municipalities wear makes it very difficult to experiment in a useful way. Federal politicians are constantly convening committees to look at the prostitution problem, often proposing that something be done to amend the criminal code, but legislation is not forthcoming.

However, a challenge may be coming. A group of sex trade workers in Vancouver is challenging the soliciting provisions of the Criminal Law as contrary to the Charter of Rights, arguing that this section of the criminal law makes street prostitutes vulnerable.

Perhaps some municipalities will be brave enough to work with residents, police, and sex trade workers to experiment by turning a blind eye to the law..

Further information on this matter can be found in the notes from the `Better Policing for Toronto’ conference held in Toronto in mid-September by Toronto Police Accountability Coalition and the Centre of Criminology, University of Toronto. See the document `Sources for Sept 17 presentations’ on the `Issues’ page at http://www.tpac.ca .

3. Subscribe to the Bulletin

The bulletin is sent monthly, at no cost, to about 1500 individuals involved directly or indirectly in local government in Canada. Those who receive this Bulletin directly (not forwarded by a third party) are already part of the subscription list. Others who wish to subscribe should go to http://www.localgovernment.ca and follow the instructions. To unsubscribe, please send a message to info@localgovernment.ca indicating your wish to unsubscribe.

More information about the sponsors of the bulletin, a library of relevant and useful documents, and an archive 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. Our next Bulletin will be in October.

- end -