AYLMER, QUEBEC | We're living the home owners' nightmare: our property taxes are too low to fund the work needed by the municipality, but our municipal councilors keep adding new projects, which cost even more money. There can be only one result: we pay more. We pay more taxes, as they inch upward, and the extra costs are added to our town's debt, which has to be paid off sooner or later.

Take the city of Gatineau, for example. The 2008 budget forecasts paying almost $65 million to merely service the debt, not pay it down. And because the city is not bringing in enough revenue to pay all of its costs, some of those debt-servicing costs get added to the debt itself.

Compounding debt, what a way not to go. But what's the alternative?

One alternative is for Benoit Pelletier, the provincial minister responsible for the Outpours, to stop handing out small-change to all sorts of events and groups and to push the government, of which he is one of the most senior ministers, to transfer more funds to the cities and towns.

If Quebecers are angry that the federal government is taking in so much in taxes that they can run a surplus, we should all be angry that both federal and provincial governments are not funding their municipal responsibilities .

Municipalities are not independent entities; they are a branch-plant of the provincial government, basically. They are creatures of the province, as was evident when Quebec decided to unilaterally merge many towns and cities, without consultation, and entirely on the grounds that they are responsible for cities. Well, that responsibility includes paying the bills.

So much for dreaming. The MNAs will keeping handing out cheques to clubs as if this is evidence of good governance. They don't seem to notice the condition of the roads they must travel to get to the big-cheque photo ops.

Closer to home, our own councils also have responsibilities for good management, and allowing municipal debt to shoot skyward is not good management. It is not good for families or for businesses, so why is it acceptable for municipal governments to run up debt?

It is acceptable when no alternative exists, and this is often the case, given towns' inability to raise revenues on their own. Debt becomes a bigger issue when municipal leaders do not raise taxes enough to cover their immediate costs, yet also take on new projects which will cost more money.

Gatineau's bid for the Quebec Summer Games in two years is a good example. These projects always cost more than projected, and the benefits, so easy to calculate in advance, seem to evaporate when the event actually takes place. And we are left with more bills to pay.

If a politician is afraid to raise taxes to an honest level, he or she should not be in a leadership role. It's not leadership to pass debts on to future generations. And taxpayers who can't afford an extra $100 for their town's streets, sidewalks, and youth centres, shouldn't be living in towns.

Everyone knows the expression, "use it or lose it." What about the other side of the coin, "use it and pay for it?"

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Copyright © 2008 Fred Ryan/Log Cabin Chronicles/02.08