The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
By Jonathon Naylor After a friend's property tax bill skyrocketed $600 last year, I asked him what he thought of the job our city council was doing. "You know what," he said, or words to that effect, "I actually support this tax increase." When I asked him why, he trotted out the familiar line that "everybody in Flin Flon has lots of money." Surely, he opined, the populace can afford to share more of their earnings with the folks at City Hall. It wasn't the first time I had heard such a comment. As outrageous as last year's tax hike was for many Flin Flonners, the fact is that not everyone was outraged. The basic principle of taxation in Canada is that if you've got more money than your neighbour, then you should pay more taxes than him. We're not like the U.S., where jacking up taxes on the wealthy carries serious political risk. It is easy for our federal and provincial governments to determine who can afford higher taxes and who cannot. They have access to information on our income and can (and do) adjust our taxes and tax rebates accordingly. But for a municipal government to try and do the same doesn't really work. All a municipality knows is what the government-determined value of our properties are. They have no comprehension of our ability, or lack thereof, to dig deeper into our wallets. I am not suggesting that any of our city councillors subscribe to my friend's belief system vis--vis Flin Flon property taxes. But just in case they do, it is worth setting the record straight as the Fontaine-led council pieces together its first budget. The notion that "everybody in Flin Flon has lots of money" is a misnomer. HBMS may be our main employer, and it may pay well, but looking at the big picture, the percentage of area residents who work there is actually quite small. Sure, there are other well-paying industries and businesses in our area, but there are also many modest- and low-paying jobs Ð probably far more than there were a decade or two ago. Consider also that the number of residents relying on food handouts and welfare has been on the rise. (Of course if you are on welfare, you probably don't own your own home, but if your landlord must pay higher taxes, tenants will feel it eventually). Then there are retirees living on fixed incomes, a trend that will grow exponentially in the coming years. There is no doubt that some, perhaps many, Flin Flonners are paying far less in property taxes than they can reasonably afford. But there is also no doubt that there are many residents who struggle to make ends meet, whose ability to cling to their homes is tenuous at best. I know these people exist because I have met some of them. Before deciding how to spend our tax dollars, or whether to boost taxes yet again, our councillors need to think long and hard about the people in that second group. They need to consider the human cost of their actions. In recent years, council has scrapped some well-intended but ultimately superfluous proposals, such as a water meter for every home and mandatory recycling fees to complement the city's existing funding of the Recycling Centre. This tendency to focus on the necessities must continue. Not everybody in Flin Flon has lots of money. Local Angle runs Fridays.
