Extract | Territorial governance

“The model for occupying the territory has gone to the end of its logic. We have both feet in the coffin and we must act before the lid is slammed on us! writes Stéphane Gendron in a last-ditch plea for Quebec rurality.

In the discourse, the governance of the regions continues to be the subject of multiple discussions, promises and commitments. The terms have taken on the appearance of a bureaucratic Newspeak which always uses the same key words: “power to the regions”, “local decisions”, “cooperation of the living forces of the milieu” and “co-construction”, without forgetting the famous “plans of development” and the various “diagrams” that delight consultants experienced in administrative language. I’m barely joking. We live in a time of consultation, construction sites, consultation and steering tables, the representation industry, electoral colleges and strategic planning. We are constantly thinking about the future, while resources are lacking in the present. What can be done to rectify the situation?

This new bureaucratic discord has continued to swell since the 1980s, when regional county municipalities (RCMs) were set up. Nowadays, hundreds of municipal entities are floundering in a perilous environment that no longer holds water, because they must constantly adapt to new standards in health, social, legal, scientific, environmental, construction, public safety and so on! Admittedly, this increase in municipal management is justified by new social values ​​and the advancement of knowledge. But, in addition to the minimum required in terms of human, material and financial resources, the administration of a municipality now requires improved and advanced skills.

First, we must review the method of financing our municipal communities which, in addition to certain transfer payments, is mainly based on property tax (the municipal tax).

This system has the effect of institutionalizing poverty in our regions, because the taxable real estate wealth of taxable properties is generally lower there than in large urban centres.

Thus, rich communities become even richer and poor communities even poorer and devitalized. It’s a vicious circle that’s been going on for too long. Over the past 25 years, municipalities have deployed extensive marketing operations to attract citizens and industries. They have become veritable machines for collecting tax revenues. However, this way of doing things no longer works. It is essential that municipalities be able to fund themselves without having to compete with each other.

In addition to the pernicious effects resulting from its mode of financing, rurality has seen its territory transform according to the significant growth in property wealth linked to the urban sprawl of major centers such as Montreal and Quebec. Thus, we have seen the birth of a gentrified rurality of proximity, alongside a second rurality, remote and even poorer. Municipal financing must be free of property tax based on market assessment. We must design an alternative funding method in which the Government of Quebec would be a stakeholder. The Institute for Socioeconomic Research and Information (IRIS) published in 2021 a study on the different models of municipal taxation^⁠1. None are perfect, but there are other ways to fund municipalities that reduce current systemic inequalities. Income tax, combined with a redistribution of collective wealth determined by the central government, is one of these avenues that would ensure the sustainability of the regions.

Secondly, why not put the question of the excessive number of local municipalities back on the political agenda? Many of them have only a few hundred inhabitants. However, the collective identity of a canton of 300 inhabitants or a hamlet of 1000 people can no longer be based on the mere existence of a municipal council. In such a context, the concept of municipal autonomy is absurd. Municipal micro-entities do not have the means to finance adequate infrastructure and to equip themselves with a competent civil service – there is a glaring shortage of human resources in the regions. Bringing together elected officials within the same municipal council does not constitute an admission of defeat; this is not the same as signing a disappearance certificate. It is rather a question of giving a second wind to the regions affected by the devitalization of their territory.

At each consultation on municipal merger projects, the same negative arguments are put forward by their opponents: loss of identity, loss of local government and short-term tax increases. The argument of the drop in services does not seem to convince the populations concerned of the need to merge certain municipal entities. However, one fact remains: the assembly halls of municipal councils in rural areas are often empty, the participation rate in elections remains relatively low and candidates for mayor do not jostle for the gate. Thus, in 2017, for all of Quebec, only 561 mayor positions and 2,909 councilor positions were up for election, out of a possibility of nearly 8,000 positions in total. That year, 217 city councils were elected by acclamation^⁠2. In the 2021 ballot, the number of those elected unopposed rose to 4,355, while only 2,478 positions were put to the vote.^⁠3. For twenty years, the participation rate in municipal elections has remained starving, at around 44% ^⁠4. Why perpetuate such a regime, worthy of the last century? Is the sacrosanct principle of local democracy just an illusion?

1. Eve-Lyne Couturier and Nicolas Viens, Municipal taxation: a necessary reform for a just transitionInstitute for Socioeconomic Research and Information, June 2, 2021

2. Data from the Ministère des Affaires municipales and the Chief Electoral Officer

3. “Number of Positions, Candidates, Persons Elected Unopposed, Vacancies, and Ballot Positions by Type of Position,” Data for the 2021 Municipal General Election, Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Quebec housing

4. Data from the Ministère des Affaires municipales and the Chief Electoral Officer

Who is Stephane Gendron?

Former mayor of Huntingdon (2003 to 2013) and well-known host, Stéphane Gendron participated in the production of five documentaries, including two on rurality and the regions: Others. Can immigrants save Huntingdon? (2014) and Distress at the end of the row (2020).

Rapailler our territories
Plea for a new rurality

Stephane Gendron

Ecosociety, May 31, 2022

144 pages