A tax grab, plain and simple

Obscenely high and unsustainable policing costs. OPP bills are destroying communities its officers are supposed to protect. Apparent self-interest is cloaked in the guise of public safety needs. Where is the political outrage while OPP costs continue to climb? Who is going to bring policing costs in this province under control?

A tax grab, plain and simple

Postby Thomas » Fri Feb 13, 2015 2:54 am

No one can be expected to cope with cost increases in the 300 per cent range – whether private sector, homeowner, or public sector. To learn our provincial decision-makers have, with basically the stroke of a pen, forced a cost increase of 329 per cent on the Municipality of Whitestone and its taxpayers isn’t just difficult – it’s enraging.

Discussion with the province to make funding OPP services fair began in earnest about two years ago with many a warning about dire consequences for rural municipalities should their preferred option go through.

And yet the preferred option is what is landing on council tables across Almaguin this year as budget discussions get underway. Whitestone certainly appears to be the highwater mark in this blatant cash grab by the provincial government, which shows so little respect for the intelligence of people in rural parts of the province dependent on the provincial police force.

For make no mistake about this, the label on the envelope may say bill, costing, invoice, share adjustment or a fairer process by which to recoup skyward costs from the richest department in Canada, but this is a tax grab of a massive order.

Dressed up on the uniform blue and gold-crested badges of Ontario’s finest, the provincial government designed and executed a massive grab from the property tax base to feed its uncurbed spending habits.


It may even be working. Whitestone mayor Chris Armstrong could not have been quicker on the draw pointing his finger at the most convenient target of unincorporated territories. In Wild West shoot-first-ask-questions-later style he didn’t hesitate to lash out at local service boards and their ratepayers as moochers, free loaders or worse.

How about blaming the people who send the bill?

And while other councils are seeing their nonnegotiable bills for policing double or worse, some might ask where the money is going. Are there going to be twice the police officers on patrol there? Will things be double safe to what they are now?

Can they choose to cut their bill in half by halving the complement of officers they do now?

Of course not.

The only consistency in the whole process is the provincial government dictating the amount of policing communities will get along with the bill regardless of how much or how little service is actually provided.


Leaders like Mayor Armstrong only muddy the water and provide cover for just the latest tax increase to hit family pocketbooks.

But his frustration is understandable.

What will the OPP cost Whitestone taxpayers and others in a similar boat? Decaying bridges? More potholes? Reduced library hours?

If it stops at that, consider themselves lucky.


Whatever the cost, Mayor Armstrong and his neighbouring councils need to stop looking at this as a billing or costing problem from the Ontario Provincial Police and see it for what it is – a pillaging of the property tax base they have worked hard to keep well managed, under control and affordable.

With a stroke of a pen they have been robbed of those efforts. The only question remains is who are they going to call?

http://www.northbaynipissing.com/opinio ... nd-simple/
Thomas, Administrator

User avatar
Thomas
Site Admin
 
Posts: 2562
Joined: Sun Mar 25, 2012 5:18 pm
Location: Canada

Return to Unsustainable Policing Costs

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 24 guests

cron