By Beryl Wajsman, Institute for Public Affairs of Montreal
Monday, March 12, 2007
"Government is like a baby:The Montreal Economic Institute's Nathalie Elgrably wrote a biting and pithy column in last Thursday's Journal de Montreal entitled La panacee. In it she takes to task Quebec's current crop of leaders running for Premier for sharing a loyalty to one instrument of policy-making: every problem can be solved by throwing money at it! That's the Quebec model "panacea". After demonstrating the bankruptcy of such a notion, she concludes by stating how refreshing it would be to see politicians who would actually search out the real causes of certain problems before committing budgets to "solve" them. That courage -- to reason before public funds are spent on "sterile" measures - would be the hallmark of a real leader she wrote, and one that "Les Quebecois meritent bien".
It is this observer's sincere hope that Montreal's Mayor Tremblay read that column. For he has taken the Quebec "panacea" to a new level in his stubborn refusal to budge on the latest challenge he faces from an enraged citizenry this time over increased parking meter rates. Tremblay has not only decided to throw money at was never a problem to begin with, but invented a new one when his first exercise in spin didn't catch on. Mr. Tremblay's panacea seems to be "invent first; tax second; discuss never". But the Tremblay administration may be hoisted on its own petard -- released in its own hand -- and condemned by its own ignorance. It's time for some courageous leadership. To paraphrase Elgrably, "Les Montrealais meritent bien!"
In a letter from the Mayor's office written in mid-February to one of the citizen coalition's organizers, the Mayor's communications director stated that the increased meter rates, restricted time limits and expanded payment periods including Sundays were necessary because more funds were needed for the city's "cleanliness" campaign. The letter was even specific about the amount. Some $1.8 million. Clearly street cleaning is a basic responsibility of civic government. But where was the crisis? Why was this suddenly a problem?
After all, the past two budgets had $10 million additional annual "envelopes" to address this issue. What happened to that money? How would $1.8 million make a difference? The Tremblay administration really had no answer. It was particularly problematic for it to explain why both a meter hike and a downtown ticketing ordinance - making tenants and property owners responsible for cleaning public areas outside their premises which is now done by the city from our taxes - were both necessary when most North American tourism officials have consistently called Montreal one of the cleanest cities in the world. Montreal's citizens certainly weren't complaining.
In that famous letter, the Mayor's office also tried to placate its critics by stating that the new rates and times just brought Montreal into line with other Canadian cities. But on closer examination that argument was also a wash-out since Montreal has much higher property and business tax rates than other cities. And then there was the third strike in that letter. It claimed that the meter hikes were a response to requests from two boroughs. That excuse was also flushed when a leading councilor from one of the boroughs went on record saying that no rate increase had been asked for by them, only that they get a share in the revenues. So just who asked for what, when...and why? City Hall went into full damage control mode.
The new rule in Quebec politics seems to be that when in doubt...grab a tree! My codicil to Elgrably's "panacee" model is that any problem -- real or perceived -- must not only have money thrown at it to show the public that "something is being done about something", but that the whole kit and kaboodle must be wrapped in the cloak of "E & E" - environment and ecology. Yeah...GO GREEN! And that's just what the Mayor tried to do last Friday.
He trotted out two city councilors to argue that not only were the meter hikes needed to raise more funds for cleanliness, but that they were necessary to encourage use of public transit; discourage use of private cars and thereby help Montreal make a real contribution to the reduction of...wait for it...you guessed it...greenhouse gas emissions! Touchdown right? Not so fast.
First of all the operations over which the city has control accounts for only about 2% of emissions in Montreal. So this is another attempt to load onto the backs of citizens what the city itself cannot do. But the stupidity of the argument is revealed by its contradictory motivations. On the one hand the city wants to collect more taxes and fees and tickets to meet its budgets. To do that it needs a functioning, vibrant city business core. The Tremblay administration has burdened small business owners, who account for 80% of new job creation and much of the city's tax revenues, with the highest tax rates Montreal has seen since then Mayor Jean Dore's surtax-driven stampede of business out of downtown. Most are barely hanging on. The Dore years saw 20-25% of downtown storefronts empty due to insanely high business surtaxes that reached 36% of commercial tenants' annual rents. Those taxes were only reduced in the administration of Mayor Pierre Bourque. Discouraging automobile usage will certainly do nothing to revive retail commercial viability. And with so many bars and restaurants reeling from revenue drops of 25-33% after the smoking ban, Montreal's downtown may just die for good.
But what is truly objectionable in the Tremblay administration's new eco-excuses is that it demonstrates a disturbing ignorance, or deliberate disregard, of the only serious study done on the relationship of taxes, mass transit and car use and how Montreal really rates in the North American context. Either this administration doesn't know, or pretends it doesn't know. Ignorance or arrogance? Take your pick. Either way this administration has demonstrated contempt for the public in its intellectual dishonesty.
Wendell Cox is arguably the most authoritative voice on urban transport, housing and the environment in North America. He has worked with the United States Department of Transportation and chaired the American Public Transit Association's planning and policy committee. He has also been a member of the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission and of the Amtrak Reform Council. Last summer he came here and presented a major study of Montreal.
That study found that very little change is necessary in regards to individual and mass transit in this city. It demonstrated that Montreal has the highest expressway density among urban areas of more than a million people in Canada and the U.S., and ranks very high in the ratio of mass transit availability to population density. Montreal has a highly competitive transportation infrastructure. Cox considered that one problem that needed immediate attention was the creation of an alternative to Metropolitan Boulevard. A parallel and alternate route would considerably reduce congestion and thereby greenhouse gas emissions. Accordingly, he favoured completion of Highway 30 and the Highway 25 Bridge.
But perhaps the most important finding in his report had to do with the bogey-man of personal car use and public transit. Cox urged decision-makers to show realism. In a talk I attended Cox was unequivocal that "Public transit has very little chance of reducing automobile use or of attracting a large share of demand for the great majority of trips that do not begin or end in downtown Montreal, In recent decades, no major urban area in the developed world has managed to reduce the share of cars in the transportation mix by more than 2% through any combination of increased mass transit or raised rates and taxes." He recommended new investments in public transit only where they can reduce travel time at less cost to government than the alternatives.
Of course the internal combustion engine causes pollution. But that pollution will only be reduced to any significant degree when hybrid cars become the standard. And that is not something that can be affected by municipal governments. Only federal policies, the money power of tax incentives and credits, can make that a reality and then only if it is a concerted effort by all industrialized nations in tandem. Naming your dog Kyoto won't cut it either.
So what's all the sturm and drang about ecology in the Montreal meter war? It's about finding another excuse for a tax grab. The demerger debacle with its Agglomeration Council and double and triple layers of bureaucracy is a hydra-headed monster that needs constant feeding. Even with downloading of service costs to the boroughs and the outsourcing of basic municipal responsibilities such as parking to private sector partnerships with the Chambre de commerce, the city will be constantly strapped for cash until politicians demonstrate the courage to reign in the leviathan of bureaucrats they created.
In place of a Reaganesque will as demonstrated in the air-traffic controllers strike, our civic leaders decided to make matters worse by increasing spending on needless initiatives that sought nothing more than to deflect the public's attention from the impotent inertia at City Hall. It created an atmosphere of motion in the air instead of substance on the ground. Just a few examples. $2.5 million on a skate-boarding arena in the west end with an equal amount about to be spent on one in the east. $5 million on a 311 phone system to handle citizen enquiries instead of telling the "fonctionnaires" at City Hall to just "pick up the phones" that are constantly ringing now. $10 million on the new hire of some 133 police officers "to ensure pedestrian safety". Translate that into jaywalking ticket-writers. And the list goes on. Yet no one has still been able to explain the near 100% cost over-run of the Laval metro extension nor the abysmal failure of road repair despite budgetary envelopes and special funds totaling hundreds of millions of dollars in the 2005 and 2006 budgets alone.
Municipal leaders, like those at all levels of government, must marshal the necessary resolve to get back to the basics of governance and get those basics right. And they've got to have the guts to tell citizens that government can't be all things to all people. Because in their attempts to be the latter, all they produce is smoke and mirrors. Mr. Tremblay's "panacea" reminds us of Benjamin Franklin's old saying that "There is nothing sure in life but death and taxes." Let's hope that Tremblay's taxes don't bring the death of Montreal.
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