It has long been said most politicians are horribly short-sighted. That is especially true of political parties.
One would think the provincial Conservatives would remember they were the ones who forced amalgamation on a number of municipalities, including Chatham-Kent, and strong-armed others to “voluntarily” amalgamate.
And remember their funding commitments.
From the late 1990s to the early 2000s, with Mike Harris as premier, Ontario went from having 850 municipalities down to 444.
At the same time, the provincial government downloaded a great deal of infrastructure maintenance and services on municipalities, ostensibly with a pledge to financially support those needs.
Except it hasn’t.
We have more than 800 bridges and culverts in Chatham-Kent, and our landscape is crisscrossed by an extensive rural road network.
We have a growing social services issue, especially with affordable housing and support for our burgeoning homeless problem.
And funding from federal and provincial levels have not kept pace, or delivered as pledged in the past.
That’s the problem with politicians in Ottawa and Toronto. They suffer from political myopia – unable to see past vote-rich large urban centres, or all that far into the past.
And we, the taxpayers in Chatham-Kent, suffer.
Our property taxes have to pay for things that should be funded by senior levels of government. Social assistance and affordable housing – vitally important issues – should never rest solely on the backs of municipal governments.
In terms of infrastructure, there should be one formula to figure out what each municipality receives in support funding. Oh, wait, there is.
The Ontario Community Infrastructure Fund has just such a formula, and under that, we should be receiving $25 million a year to help with our infrastructure maintenance costs, according to C-K officials.
Except, we don’t.
Chatham-Kent is one of just three municipalities that are, for some reason, capped under the fund. We get $10 million per annum.
So too does Thunder Bay and Sudbury, two other amalgamated municipalities with large geographical footprints.
They are also far away from Queen’s Park. Over the horizon and out of mind.
We urge our two local MPPs, Trevor Jones and Steve Pinsonneault, and whomever our next MP is after the April 28 federal election, to lobby on our behalf to get senior levels of government to pony up their fair share.
Ignoring the issue could break the backs of C-K ratepayers and ultimately put more people out on the street.
