Despite learning that Montreal businesses pay higher taxes than anywhere else in Canada last January, municipal politicians continued to spend with abandon.<\/p>\n
Boroughs gave out thousands of dollars of taxpayer money monthly so that local community groups could party on taxpayer dimes.<\/p>\n
In February, for instance, the borough of St. Laurent paid $1,000 for ten people to breakfast at the 28e Grand Prix du Conseil des arts de Montr\u00e9al.<\/p>\n
In May, Verdun gave 17 approved community groups $221,700 worth of funding in a single resolution. Some groups may do good work for this money, but the minutes offered no public explanation or project descriptions.<\/p>\n
In June, the C\u00f4te-des-Neiges\u2014Notre-Dame-de-Gr\u00e2ce borough gave out $31,500 for festivals in the neighbourhood. Almost a third of that went to the Filipino Association of Montreal and Suburbs for various Pista Sa Nayon festival events. The Council of Canadian Filipino Associations of Qu\u00e9bec got $8,000 for their Philippines Independence Day celebrations and another $3000 went to the Association de Bocce de Saint-Raymond for Italian Week.<\/p>\n
That same month, the borough of LaSalle spent $35,814.71 with Groupe Kloda Focus Inc. for sound equipment for celebrations on June 24 and July 1.<\/p>\n
Presumably, all of these amounts are for worthy causes, but should taxpayers be paying for such items when infrastructure demands are high and individual citizens\u2019 retirement funds are threatened by climbing tax rates?<\/p>\n
Residential tax rates sat at $8.69 per $1000 of assessment last year, a figure that beat out Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto and Vancouver. Only Halifax, Ottawa and Winnipeg had higher residential rates last year, and their commercial rates were much lower.<\/p>\n
In 2013, Montreal\u2019s commercial tax rate went up to an all-time high of $38.26 per $1000 of assessment. That rate was higher than all the other major cities in Canada, including Vancouver and Toronto.<\/p>\n
At 4.40, Montreal\u2019s commercial-to-residential ratio beat out every other city in the country, a fact that astounded the Altus Group, which came out with new figures for the Real Property Association in October. Only Vancouver, at 4.35, and Toronto, at 4.07, came close.<\/p>\n
Note: A version of this article appeared on page 12 of the Suburban’s January 1st retrospective issue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Despite learning that Montreal businesses pay higher taxes than anywhere else in Canada last January, municipal politicians continued to spend with abandon. Boroughs gave out thousands of dollars of taxpayer money monthly so that local community groups could party on taxpayer dimes. In February, for instance, the borough of St. Laurent paid $1,000 for ten […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_wp_convertkit_post_meta":{"form":"-1","landing_page":"0","tag":"0","restrict_content":"0"},"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[21],"tags":[96,44],"class_list":["post-3207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-island-report","tag-montreal","tag-taxes","post-wrapper","thrv_wrapper"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2buQs-PJ","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":16019,"url":"https:\/\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/en\/collusion-contracts-grants-verdun\/","url_meta":{"origin":3207,"position":0},"title":"Collusion, contracts and grants in Verdun","author":"Tracey Arial","date":"October 29, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"The borough of Verdun held two important meetings in October\u2014their regular council meeting and a general committee meeting that included councillors and borough managers. Mayor Jean-Fran\u00e7ois Parenteau outlined the final report into borough finances at both meetings. The council also awarded contracts for work at the Guy Gagnon building, for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Politics That Matter"","block_context":{"text":"Politics That Matter","link":"https:\/\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/en\/category\/cultural-identity\/politics-that-matter\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1495,"url":"https:\/\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/en\/taxpayer-gets-overpayment-back-with-interest\/","url_meta":{"origin":3207,"position":1},"title":"Taxpayer gets overpayment back with interest","author":"Tracey Arial","date":"February 26, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"The LaSalle taxpayer who paid 2013 garbage and water taxes twice\u2014once in April and a second time in December\u2014has been fully refunded. He got a cheque from Montreal for the extra $140 he paid plus $1.95 interest. \u201cI\u2019m relieved that someone in Montreal\u2019s tax department has carefully done their job,\u201d\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "LaSalle"","block_context":{"text":"LaSalle","link":"https:\/\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/en\/category\/canada\/lasalleposts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"cheque","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/cheque.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1348,"url":"https:\/\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/en\/basement-apartment-surve\/","url_meta":{"origin":3207,"position":2},"title":"Was LaSalle owner taxed twice during basement survey?","author":"Tracey Arial","date":"January 13, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"The LaSalle property owner who complained about being charged for a non-existent apartment last month now believes he was double-billed him for water and garbage as well. Ioan Ruxanda now wants his money back, but so far no one from Montreal\u2019s tax department has returned his calls. Patricia Lowe, an\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "LaSalle"","block_context":{"text":"LaSalle","link":"https:\/\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/en\/category\/canada\/lasalleposts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1365,"url":"https:\/\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/en\/lasalle-passes-2013-service-tax-rate\/","url_meta":{"origin":3207,"position":3},"title":"LaSalle Passes 2013 Service Tax Rate","author":"Tracey Arial","date":"December 31, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Property owners in LaSalle will be will be charged service taxes of 0.1149% on property values next year, in addition to borough taxes, water supply reserve taxes, investment taxes, a water-use fee and a waste-management fee. LaSalle set its rates on December 13 when two bylaws passed at the December\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "LaSalle"","block_context":{"text":"LaSalle","link":"https:\/\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/en\/category\/canada\/lasalleposts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1255,"url":"https:\/\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/en\/montreal-for-tomorrow-consultations\/","url_meta":{"origin":3207,"position":4},"title":"\u201cMontreal for Tomorrow\u201d Consultations","author":"Tracey Arial","date":"November 13, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"The City of Montreal is holding consultations on a sustainable development plan for the next 20 years that will be adopted in early 2013. Former mayor Gerald Tremblay and former chair of the executive committee Michael Applebaum are the elected officials quoted in the online documents. According to the \u201cMontreal\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Island Report"","block_context":{"text":"Island Report","link":"https:\/\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/en\/category\/canada\/island-report\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2857,"url":"https:\/\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/en\/quartier_21_lasalle\/","url_meta":{"origin":3207,"position":5},"title":"Executive Committee Approves Quartier 21 LaSalle","author":"Tracey Arial","date":"September 4, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"LaSalle\u2019s social development round-table organization will receive funding under the Quartier 21 project for the period from January 1, 2014 until December 31, 2017. \u201cWe are very proud to have been chosen by Quartier 21 and we have been working very hard to come up with a project that will\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "LaSalle"","block_context":{"text":"LaSalle","link":"https:\/\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/en\/category\/canada\/lasalleposts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3207"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3207\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3208,"href":"https:\/\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3207\/revisions\/3208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}