The Official Opposition at Montreal City Hall fears a “considerable” increase in the tax burden imposed on Montrealers or a drop in the services offered next year due to the growing indebtedness of the metropolis.
“We are in a boat that is currently sinking and we are going to show it to you,” the interim leader of Ensemble Montreal, Aref Salem, launched on Wednesday during a virtual press conference held at the end of the morning in margin of the tabling by the party of its minority report on the City’s 2022 budget.
The party, which will vote against this budget during the city council meeting scheduled for Thursday, affirms in particular that it does not take into account the current pandemic context marked by the rise of the Omicron variant of COVID-19. The training also notes that the growth of the City’s budget has increased by 24% since the election of Valérie Plante as mayor in 2018, an increase of 1.26 billion dollars.
However, the revenues of the metropolis do not increase at the same rate as its expenses, among other things due to the addition of 1,761 new employees to the City over a period of five years, notes the opposition.
The City thus finds itself having to rely heavily on indebtedness, which raises the specter of a credit downgrade, while drawing on its financial reserves, “which are rendered almost empty”, according to the opposition. Thus, “we are emptying the woolen stockings of Montrealers that we have filled over the years,” lamented Mr. Salem.
The latter therefore fears that the City will have no other choice to proceed with “a considerable increase in taxes” in its budget for next year, or that it will decide to cut in certain investment projects and services offered to the population because of their precarious financial situation.
“The limit has been reached. We cannot continue to dig into the debt”, also analyzed the mayor of Saint-Laurent and spokesperson for the opposition party in matters of finance, Alan DeSousa, who compared this situation to a citizen who would draw on his regime. registered retirement savings plan (RRSP) to pay for groceries. “We are starting to see the bottom,” he added.
To meet its financial needs, the City could nevertheless benefit from the support of the Government of Quebec, as has been the case in recent years, agreed Mr. DeSousa. He nevertheless judges that the “financial dependence” of the City on the provincial government is “unhealthy”, since it “necessarily entails a political dependence”.
The opposition thus wonders how the City intends to reduce its debt ratio to 100% in 2027, as it currently plans. “There is no plan or rather, the plan only seems to be to hope,” dropped the mayor of Outremont and vice-president of the City’s Finance Commission, Laurent Desbois.
An artificial balance
The opposition also claims that the budget of the City of Montreal has been artificially balanced by overestimating certain sources of revenue, in particular those related to the issuance of fines and penalties, while several expenses have been, according to Ensemble Montreal ” underestimated”, including those concerning public safety. However, the budget of the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) was inflated by $45 million in 2022 to reach $724.1 million.
The city’s lack of financial leeway is also pushing it to delay or cancel the fulfillment of some of Projet Montréal’s election promises, notes the official opposition. During the study of the SPVM budget before the City’s Commission on Finances, its chief Sylvain Caron mentioned in particular the net hiring of 60 police officers in 2022, taking into account retirements, which is significantly less than the 250 police officers initially promised by Ms. Plante. A clear financial strategy concerning the City’s project to allow the construction of 60,000 affordable housing units in the next 10 years in the metropolis is also slow to be announced, deplores the party.
“Clearly, this budget is not the right budget now to get us out of the crisis, whether it’s housing, public safety or even the pandemic,” said Mr. DeSousa.
Mayor Valérie Plante’s office defended the content of its budget on Wednesday.
“Our administration’s 2022 budget allows us to face the challenges related to the pandemic context while accelerating the priorities of Montrealers, particularly in housing, ecological transition and security,” wrote the Duty his press officer, Marikym Gaudreault, who described this budget as “responsible”.
Related cities vote against
The mayor of Beaconsfield, Georges Bourelle, and his counterpart from Dollard-des-Ormeaux, Alex Bottausci, who are members of the Finance Commission, also tabled a minority report to express their opposition to the budget of the Plante-Ollivier administration. .
The two elected officials again denounced what they consider a tax inequity against the citizens of the related cities who, they write, pay 56% more than those of Montreal while they receive fewer services. They urge the Montreal administration to enter into negotiations to correct the situation.
According to them, the calculation of the shares paid by the related cities should not be based solely on the property tax base. Other indicators should be considered, such as service use or population, they say. “Over the past three years, we have noticed a significant growth in the portion occupied by quota shares in the financing of the total budget of the City of Montreal, going from 39.5% in 2020 to 43.1% in 2022. This demonstrates the ever-increasing pressure on the taxpayers of the linked cities, ”they lament.
For the elected officials of the related towns, it is moreover “completely unacceptable” that water consumption is not assumed by all the residents of the island and they suggest the establishment of a systematic tariff for every home and business, which would also reduce water consumption.
With Jeanne Corriveau