General Road and Highway Discussion

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If correct, this would be much more significant. And if the council can gather enough courage and actually vote in the tax increase.

Well, since the decision is after the election, they can vote it in and be safe for at least 4 years. Although it'll interesting to see if anyone gets voted in being specifically against the increase then votes for it and uses the "I didn't have all the info" excuse. Or maybe they're hoping for some miracle funding to come from another layer of government.

The pattern of municipal tax increases seems to be city/regional staff warn of needing X% increases due to reasons, scare the public for a few weeks, then the city/region passes an increase of (X/n)% and look like they gave taxpayers a break. Meanwhile, every year we get to read about infrastructure deficits growing i just about every city & region.

I realize I'm sounding awfully cynical here. I think there are a lot of issues in spending and revenue generation for cities that need to be dealt with, some at the provincial level (who I'm sure would love money from the federal level). So far I'm not hearing much talk of this in the lead-up to the provincial election. Sure, all the money comes from somewhere but some taxes/tools are less painful than others, and right now cities only have one tool.