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agazine Section

By NIGEL MORGAN

OON an important decision

will be reached in 32 cities,
three towns, 30 municipali-
ties, 59 villages and 101. school
districts in British Columbia.
You and I will go to the polls
to elect our municipal govern-
ment and school board repre-
Sentatives. Vital services are
involved for every home, and
a sizeable slice of our family
budgets.

Between them the _ repre-
sentatives we elect will ad-
minister budgets totaling over
a quarter of a billion dollars
—the giant share of which
will be assessed against our
homes and paid in taxes, or
indirectly in rent. Last year’s
$158 million cost of munici-
pal services and $91 million
school tax bill is big business;
in amount, almost as much as
the total B.C. budget.

The cities and municipali-
ties of B.C., their problems,
their future and their financ-
ing, must be placed at the top
of any realistic list of political
issues facing us today, In
every municipality home-own-
ers, tenants and small busi-
nesses are groaning under the
rising. mountain. of municipal
debt. In many like Vancouver,
an old age pensioner who has
scraped and saved to “own” a
home to help him through the
sunset of life, now finds that
his ‘“‘ownership” will be sum-
marily terminated unless he
surrenders approximately half
his $55 old age pension cheque
each month for taxes. Unpaid
taxes are on the increase, and
with mounting unemployment
the situation grows worse.

OURCE of the crisis stems
from the fact that the pres-
ent assignment of responsibili-
ties for services and sharing of
tax revenues between the three

“levels of government (munici-

pal, provincial and federal)
have not been basically chang-
ed since they were assigned in
the B.N.A. ‘Act, a century ago.
Then, only 20% of the popula-
tion of Canada lived in the
urban centres and. 80% “‘un-
organized” rural areas. Today
the proportion is reversed, with
a tremendous increase in de-
mand for municipal services.
Yet, no change in the division
of responsibilities and no basic
thange has been made in the

division of revenues to pro-
vide the services, even though |
urgently necessary improve-|
ments for traffic, schools, hos- |
pitals, water, sewers, libraries, |
park and recreational facilities
are required. |
|
“MUNICIPAL STATISTICS |
—1958” reports that liabilities
of B.C. municipalities have
risen from $382 to $601 mil-
lion—an increase of $218,977,-
102 in six years. That’s an ave-
rage of $36% million per year;
over $3 million.per month, or
$101,000 per day. Thus, every
day Victoria Socreds and Ot-
tawa Tories are allowed to
continue present policies of
starving the municipalities,
they’re putting B.C. home-
owners in the hole to the ex-
tent of $101,000 per day.

We're told there is no
money available. Yet, we’re
paying the highest taxes in
history. Taxes at all levels of
government. took about $400

for each man, women and
child for the year ending
March 31, 1960. Of this

amoun* over $100—nearly two
billion dollars in all—is being
spent on armaments. Recogni-
tion of the futility .of this mad
arms race, rejection of such a
suicidal course, disentangle-
ment from all military alli-
ances, and the declaration of
Canadian neutrality in the
cold war, would make possible
the diversion of the fantastic-
ally high and_ senseless war
budget to our most pressing
needs.

Therein lies the only realis-
tic answer to the pressing need
for greater federal government
aid to relieve the tax load and

|

NIGEL MORGAN
Provincial leader, Commun-

| this province,

| bankrupt

| owners

IS KEY CIVIC ISSU

solve the job crisis.
e

STAGGERING debt
ture is being built up in
threatening to
municipalities

the home-
and tenants that live

the
(and worse still)

in them.

According to the govern.
&

ment’s “MUNICIPAL STATIS-
TICS—1958” municipal debts
in B.C. have risen $57,760,705

—from $174 million when So-
cial Credit came to power in

1952, to $232 million at Dec.
31, 1958. Provincial grants
over the same period have

risen only $214 million.

Premier Bennett brags about
the Homeowner Grant. But
this year even after the $22
increase, it only amounted to
an estimated $13,444,000 for
the whole province compared
to an increase of $82,272,281
in municipal expenditures
over the same period.

And, welcome as the Home-
owner Grant: was, it is a ‘rob
Peter to pay Paul’ proposi-
tion—only possible because of
increased gouging in other
Provincial taxes such as the
Sales Tax: which ‘has~ been
doubled. on a per capita basis
from $26.10 in 1952 to $51.90
in 1958.

budget, the Bennett Govern-
‘ment took $146 million out
of our pockets in “consumer”
taxes (i.e. sales and amusement
taxes and government liquor
profits) as compared with a
total recovered from the big
monopolies for sale and use of
our natural resources (forest
licenses, mineral rights, oil and
gas reserves, royalties, crown
grants, and all resources in-
come). The provincial Socred
policy is one of loading more
and more of the debts, and
municipal and school costs on
to the municipalities and thus
helping the big monopolies to
evade their responsibilities,

ETERAN .Communist Ald-
Se Jacob Penner of
Winnipeg emphasizes in a cur-
rent tract “THE CRISIS IN
MUNICIPAL GOVERN-
MENT’—that “the system of
local. government taxation is
still based upon real estate

ist Party of Canada.

struc- ;

| years
\
In the last B.C. Provincial |

LOTS

needs. That’s

OF MONEY for
Ottawa’s

governments.

arms but very little for people’s
attitude today
This must be changed says

gan in this article. “Less spending on arms and more

toward civic

Nigel Mor-

aid to municipalities is the only realistic answer.” he

says.
ships, which bear no relation, the country by as much as
to production’ income, or real , 50%. The Rowell-Sirois Report
ability to pay. The basic con- | signified agreement that such
tradiction, therefore is that ajservices should not properly
few people appropriate the/be a charge against municipal
profits from. expanding pro- | property taxes.

duction and increasing urban- |
costs. of |

while the
social services to

ization,
necessary

keep society growing and re- | —
| additional federal and provin-
| cial
| firmly convinced that the fir

producing falls on the many.”
The “many” means you and
me!

Big business is aided in var-
ious ways. to
their share of taxation im-
posed’ by municipal govern-
ment. More and more in recent
major industrial devel-
opments in B.C. have been lo-
cating just outside the tax
jurisdiction of local govern-
ments from which they derive
the required manpower, and
associated municipal and social

services. Typical examples of |

this are the British “Annacis

avoid paying }

Island” industrial development |

in the Fraser River, Harmac
Pulp near Nanaimo and other
big enterprises.

The Communist Party has
placed _ before the Rowell-
Sirois Commission the recent
Gordon Commission and num-
erous . Dominion - Provincial
conferences, that services not
directly linked to _ serving
properties be taken over by
the senior governments:

This would have included

such heavy expenditures as
the cost of education, relief,

care of indigents and the aged,
children’s aid and social wel-
fare expenditures. Statistical
tables-in the Party’s brief

!showed beyond a doubt: that

this would have Yreduced

and the old economic relation- municipal expenditures across

Nothing further has been
done about it, although there
is a growing recognition that
aid is necesary. We are
ancial ‘crisis will continue tc
worsen unless and until pro

vincial and federal goverr
ments are made to assure
their responsibility for a +e

quate financial assistance

In the forthcoming ele: cion;
in B.C., civie voters ery
where should use their »alloi
to make their voice heard
across the nation f Anew
Canada First policies —io ° gei

action on unemployr enti and
to divert federal spending to
education and provis:oi. of: tax
relief for municipa_.:atepay-
ers.

Vote for repres¢ iiiatives on
council and schoc: poard who
can be counted upon to insist
on a more equi able sharing
of governmen. revenues,- on
extension of the tax base and
an end to the policy of big
business: favoritism at the ex-
pense of the average taxpayer,
on provision of a basic exemp-
tion on home assessments,
public ownership. of light,
transit and phone utilities, an
extension of civic democracy
and improvement of municipal
services and educational stan-
dards.

Let’s. ensure that the coming
December. civic elections chalk
up a victory for progress.

December 2, 1960—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 5