City of London Candidate Questionnaire General Provincial Election June 12, 2014

Transcription

1 City of London Candidate Questionnaire General Provincial Election June 12, 2014 Dave McKee, Communist Party of Ontario, London North Centre Fostering Job Creation 1. How will you and your Party work with municipalities to create jobs and support local economic development initiatives? The Communist Party calls for a full employment strategy for Ontario. Our approach to job creation includes (a) initiating a massive housing program, to build 200,000 of affordable social housing over four years; (b) restoring and expanding Ontario's value-added manufacturing and secondary industry, (c) restarting Ontario's steel industry through nationalization of US Steel plants; (d) building a Canadian transportation industry to produce cars, public transit vehicles and industrial transportation equipment that are affordable, fuel efficient and environmentally responsible; (e) rebuilding crumbling provincial and municipal infrastructure; (f) expanding apprenticeships; and (g) expanding social programs. This is a comprehensive strategy, which requires engagement and active involvement of municipalities for effective and efficient implementation. Local consultation and genuine involvement will help ensure that specific initiatives are well-planned, properly resourced, and provide the maximum benefit in terms of job creation and social impact.

2 The Communist Party also proposes strong plant closure legislation, that would require companies to justify, before a public tribunal, their intention to close plants. Failure to do so would result in stiff penalties and, ultimately, public takeover of the plant in order to preserve jobs. This kind of legislation would have helped prevent many plant closures in London since To be effective, plant closure legislation would need to be implemented in a way that involves local stakeholders, including municipal governments, unions, and community organizations. 1.1 How will you and your Party work with the City of London to support London s Unlocking Prosperity initiative to service new industrial (employment) lands in the vicinity of London s Highway 401 corridor? The City of London's Unlocking Prosperity initiative includes impressive projections for job creation, both in the sense of immediate jobs and those generated in a spinoff fashion. The potential economic benefits are wide-reaching. The Communist Party's approach to municipal development strategy is based on a recognition of the importance of public ownership and democratic control. We support municipal land banking, for example, rather than selling municipal lands to private corporations, to ensure that the public lands and assets are maintained for current and future generations. Public ownership and democratic control are the best vehicles for ensuring that development initiatives include proper economic stewardship (ie create good jobs with good wages and benefits), social stewardship (ie the goods and services are affordable and meet a social need), and environmental stewardship (ie the development proceeds in the most sustainable manner possible). Our approach to the Unlocking Prosperity initiative would be to work for the maximum degree of public ownership and democratic control. This way, the initiative will proceed in a manner that is transparent, responsive to people's needs, produces good jobs with strong wages and benefits, and continues to benefit the community far into the future. 1.2 How will you and your Party ensure that energy prices in Ontario are competitive with the North American market? The Communist Party argues that public power publicly owned and controlled energy industry is key. We would rebuild Ontario Hydro, which was broken up and privatized, and develop publicly owned environmentally-sustainable energy industries. This is the best method for producing and delivering affordable energy to Ontario. background on jobs and local economic development initiatives, see City of London 2014 Ontario Pre-Budget Consultation: Unlocking Prosperity: Creating Jobs in London and Southwestern Ontario. For background on industrial lands see Industrial Land

3 Development Strategy Brochure. For background on competitive Energy prices see City of London Energy brief. Providing Municipal Governments Fiscal Room to Invest Locally 2. How will you and your Party support the scheduled uploading of funding from municipalities to the province as implemented through the Provincial- Municipal Fiscal and Service Delivery Review (PMFSDR) as a measure to restore the provincial-municipal financial imbalance in a fair and sustainable manner? The Communist Party argues for a new financial deal for municipalities. This new deal includes (a) delivering stable statutory transfers to cover the real costs of municipal services; (b) uploading the costs of public transit, health, housing, childcare and social assistance back to the province, which were downloaded to municipalities by the Conservative government of Mike Harris; (c) returning 50% of the gas and road user taxes to municipalities; (d) repealing the Current Value Assessment method of property taxation; and (e) eliminating development charges and the Ontario Municipal Board. 2.1 Will you and your Party commit to further upload service funding that more properly falls under provincial responsibility such as Public Health, Social Services and Land Ambulance? Absolutely.The Communist Party has long demanded that the funding for these services be uploaded to the provincial level, and properly funded through provincial general revenues. 2.2 Recognizing that the current interest arbitration system for emergency services is broken and requires a complete overhaul, will you and your Party change the interest arbitration system in a way that favours the taxpayers, considers the economic health of the community in arbitration decisions and provides transparent and accountable decisions? The Communist Party position on municipal services is that they should be funded, in the main, from statutory grants from the province. These grants would need to include sufficient funds for good wages and benefits of the workers providing those services. Changing the interest arbitration system requires the involvement, in the first place, of the unions involved. The Communist Party believes that the economic health of the community includes respect for the labour and democratic rights of municipal workers and unions in the community, and oppose efforts to cut costs by reducing wages, pensions and benefits. 2.3 Will you and your Party work to revise the Development Charges Act to remove barriers to full funding of growth related costs and to explicitly ensure that municipal taxpayers benefit from new sources of revenue? Relying upon locally-based commercial-industrial levies is not sustainable capital

4 flows to areas of least resistance (lowest taxation), which means that municipalities find themselves in competition with one another for development. Such a situation leads to corruption, reduced services, and socially irresponsible development. The Communist Party believes that costs of city services, including ones pertaining to development, should be funded through statutory grants paid from provincial general revenues. Failing that, the provincial government should provide municipalities with new wealth-taxing powers. background on the Provincial-Municipal Fiscal and Service Delivery Review, see Ontario Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing as well as the City of London 2014 Ontario Pre-Budget Consultation: Unlocking Prosperity: Creating Jobs in London and Southwestern Ontario. For background on interest arbitration, see AMO s policy on Interest Arbitration. For background on Development Charges, see the City of London Development Charges Brief. Improving Economic Competitiveness by Investing in Strategic Infrastructure 3. What are you and your Party prepared to do to support and enhance sustained and long-term provincial and federal investment in municipal infrastructure? Investment in municipal infrastructure is key to the Communist Party's job creation policy and to its social program policy. Physical infrastructure (roads, bridges, sewers, etc.) in many municipalities is crumbling and/or working beyond its maximum capacity. An immediate investment is necessary. In addition, new infrastructure needs to be built social housing, public transit expansion, and childcare centres. These facilities require immediate investment, but also a longterm financial commitment. Without the latter, infrastructure will again become overburdened and the costs of deferred maintenance will skyrocket. 3.1 How will you and your Party ensure that the province commits to a fair distribution of provincial and federal infrastructure investments? The most effective method for ensuring that transfers are fair and effective is to introduce a system of guaranteed, statutory funding for infrastructure and programs. This funding process would be based on local need and would occur in a public process, with full involvement of stakeholders at the municipal level. 3.2 How will you and your Party support public transit? i.e. Do you and your Party support the continued dedication of Provincial Gas Tax funding for transit? Do you support the application of new revenue tools as outlined in the Metrolinx report to regions outside the Greater Toronto Hamilton Area? The Communist Party supports expansion of public transit, with sufficient funding

5 from the provincial government that fares can be reduced and, eventually, eliminated. We would deliver 50% of gas and road user taxes to municipalities, which would help fund public transit expansion and maintenance. We argue that public transit should be publicly owned and controlled, and we oppose P3 (privatepublic partnership) forms of development. In terms of the revenue tools outlined in the Metrolinx report, most of these tools are forms of user fees or consumption taxes, which we do not support. We would fund public transit including seamless regional transit through provincial general revenues. The provincial and federal governments have the capacity to tax those who can most afford to pay corporations and the very wealthy and should use this capacity to properly fund public transit and other services. 3.3 How will you or your Party work with London to support Bus Rapid Transit and London s Transportation Master Plan? We support expanded public transit within and between municipalities. Funding should be provided by the provincial and federal government. Planning of transit development needs to occur at the local level, with full public input, in order to ensure that it is responsive, accessible, affordable and effective. 3.4 How will you and your Party work with London and other corridor communities to support moving forward with frequent High Speed Rail service between London, Kitchener-Waterloo, Pearson and Toronto? The Communist Party has long argued for seamless regional transit systems through corridor communities in Ontario. As with municipal public transit, funding should be provided by the provincial and federal government. Planning of transit development needs to occur at the local level, with full public input from all municipalities in the corridor involved, in order to ensure that it is responsive, accessible, affordable and effective. background on municipal infrastructure, see The Industrial Land Development Strategy Brochure and, Uploaded Services and Financial Benefits from the Province to the City of London. For background on public transit, see Bus Rapid Transit Strategy and a Letter from Mayor Joe Fontana to Dr. Anne Golden, Chair, Transit Investment Strategy Advisory Panel, November 26, For background on High Speed Rail, see the City of London HSR brief. Addressing Housing Needs 4. Will you and your Party work with the City of London to develop a long term sustainable federal-provincial-municipal solution to address the housing needs of low income households, those households requiring support services (i.e. mental illness, addictions, victims of domestic violence), and the housing needs of Aboriginal households?

6 Yes. Housing is a right, yet Canada is the only developed country that does not have a national housing strategy. The only way to correct this shameful situation and develop a long-term sustainable solution is to engage all levels of government, community groups and housing advocates. It is well established that relying on the private sector to build affordable housing is a failed strategy. The Communist Party calls for an emergency program to build 200,000 units of affordable social housing over 4 years. A housing program needs to be publicly funded, publicly owned and publicly controlled. The housing itself needs to be publicly owned and democratically administered, in order to ensure that it serves the needs of the communities involved. The Communist Party argues that a housing strategy needs to include real rent control for tenants, and bankruptcy protection for workers who are unemployed, locked out or on strike. 4.1 How will you and your Party address the shortfall in capital reserve contributions for non-profit and cooperative housing as well as the funding shortfall for public housing capital repairs at transfer of social housing to municipalities? How will you and your Party address the reduction in the number of rent-geared-to-income units caused by the termination of federal funding due to the Expiring Social Housing Operating Agreements? Will you and your Party support a change to Social Housing social assistance rents to the maximum shelter allowance used in the private sector rather than legislated rent scales to reduce the subsidy required from the local property taxpayer? The Communist Party view is that housing should be treated as a public utility it should be provided to all based on need. Federal and provincial governments need to fund construction and maintenance at sufficient levels, and the practice of downloading costs to municipalities needs to be stopped and reversed. Rentgeared-to-income (RGI) housing units are crucial, and funding must be guaranteed at levels that can meet need. Social assistance rates, including the special housing allowance, are criminally low and need to be immediately raised above the poverty level. background on housing, see the City of London brief on housing. Healthy Communities 5. How will you and your Party improve mental health and addictions services so that people can be supported effectively and not discharged to homeless shelters without any support? What will you and your Party do to ensure a "housing first" approach is taken for Ontario s most vulnerable mental health and addictions population?

7 The Communist Party policy on health calls for increased government funding for hospitals and healthcare facilities. Ontario needs expanded healthcare, including increased funding for mental health services and facilities. We would reverse the delisting of services restoring those services already delisted and expanding public healthcare to fully include dental, vision, pharmacare, mental health and long-term care. The Communist Party position is to stop closures and mergers of hospitals and healthcare facilities, and to stop the practice of discharge without support. We would expand support services and programs for vulnerable mental health and addictions populations. background on mental health, see City of London brief on Mental Health.