Northern and rural Ontario ridings are paying the price for the Liberal party governing with their city-centric policies. It seems that since the Liberals are limited to representing GTA ridings, their party is governing the province with policies that are appropriate only for those areas.
For example, the Municipality of East Ferris has managed its affairs on a pay-as-you-go basis for all of the 37 years, current Mayor, Bill Vrebosch has been in politics. Over the last year, the East Ferris council got the feeling their debt-free status was affecting funding decisions made by the Liberal party. Comments such as "Why would we give you money? You have no debt, you don't need it" make the council feel they are being punished for good fiscal management.
In cities that are growing rapidly, the continual need for more capital dollars has resulted in developers paying large amounts in developers fees, as cities look to sources of funding other than government coffers. This cost led the developers to push back and state there was a more fair way to spread out the cost of large capital investments...long-term, low interest debt.
The provincial government bought into the argument, and now it looks at municipalities with no long-term debt as being irresponsible to the current generation, rather than the good financial stewards they are. In small communities where capital investments are made in a slow and steady stream of improvements, developers are not paying large amounts of money and that cost is not being passed onto the current generation of homeowners.
In most cases, capital improvements can be deferred until they can be afforded and with no water or sewer infrastructure to maintain, there is not the same "maintenance gap" as currently exists in the infrastructure of major centers. These small communities are deserving of their normal share of provincial transfers and should not be punished for managing their financial affairs wisely.
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