Unerring Decision-Making

Ottawa taxpayers were given the good news today.  The most modest tax hike in years came in at a mere 2.09% and 2% for the rural areas in a budget approved by City Council.  Who are doubtless lauding themselves and the budgetary restraints undertaken by municipal employees on behalf of the beleaguered taxpayer.

Ottawa's forward-looking, environmentally-conscious City Council in their great wisdom has authorized garbage collection bi-weekly rather than weekly, with green bin collection and recyclables alternating weekly as usual.  During the winter months that bi-weekly garbage collection seems reasonable enough, although large families will chafe at all the garbage that will accumulate.  Come summer?

Fact of the matter is we acquire so much garbage on a weekly basis because most food is over-packaged, creating a mountain of detritus, of paper and plastics and combinations of both in ever-egregious amounts.  Too bad there's no move on the part of responsible government to declare the evils of over-packaging, to take us back to the bad old days when there was relatively little of it.

That aside, and aside from the fact that municipal civil service has been cut as well to provide 'savings', although that's a specious claim since most of the cut-backs will result from white-outing unfilled positions, along with not filling positions of retired and leaving personnel, there's the not-so-insignificant matter of waste on the part of the city.

St.Joseph Boulevard in Orleans is an unsightly embarrassment which the city is anxious to ameliorate by persuading businesses to locate there to present a more presentable looking environment.  The city had devised an economic development department to encourage high-end jobs to appear in that sector of the city.  High-end jobs are not how one might describe jobs in the service industry.

However, the hugely successful Farm Boy concessions do attract customers and to service those customers they employ locally engaged personnel.  Is it really intelligent to allow a business that is such a money-maker for the entrepreneurs who operate their locations to apply for financial assistance through taxpayer-funded programs?

Evidently City Council thinks it's a good use of scarce tax funding.  They appear prepared to give the Place d'Orleans mall close to $460,000 to build a new Farm Boy grocery store.  The property owners applied for the grant under the "community improvement plan" approved for St.Joseph Boulevard by the city in 2009.

Commerce works swiftly, unlike bureaucracies, and though the application was sent in long before a building permit was applied for, the new Farm Boy facilities were built in the interim, and the store has been in operation since the summer months.  Its operation is a license to make money for all concerned, the property stakeholders and the Farm Boy operators.  They do not need a financial break from taxpayers.

But it's likely to be approved; Farm Boy will get a big break on its tax rate for its first ten years of operation.  And the fortunate tax-paying property owners in Ottawa will only see their tax rate increased by 2.09% for the coming year.  Congratulations. 

Charity directed toward successful corporate interests is alive and well in Ottawa thanks to the compelling generosity of the taxpayer.