Comments on: Ensuring Canada’s Economic Future http://www.creativeclass.com/_v3/creative_class/2009/04/15/ensuring-canadas-economic-future/ The source on how we live, work and play Wed, 07 Dec 2011 18:10:07 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: EmilyC http://www.creativeclass.com/_v3/creative_class/2009/04/15/ensuring-canadas-economic-future/comment-page-1/#comment-11740 EmilyC Thu, 16 Apr 2009 16:23:22 +0000 http://www.creativeclass.com/_v3/creative_class/?p=10017#comment-11740 Great report. I absolutely agree with the general thrust that Canada has amazing national advantages to build on, but that we underachieve our prosperity potential on several fronts. On the topic of innovative tax approaches, one area that could have a salient impact on strengthening Canada’s advantages over the long run is municipal tax policy. Enid Slack, Director of the University of Toronto’s Institute on Municipal Finance and Governance, has written some great stuff on the fiscal challenges and opportunities facing Canada’s large cities and emerging mega-regions. In a recent article in Policy Options, she argues with Richard Bird that our country’s future prosperity is increasingly linked to the performance of its largest cities, but municipal governments simply do not have the fiscal capacity or authority to match their increasing expenditure responsibilities. In this context, they recommend that provincial governments should give large cities access to income taxes by allowing them to piggyback on the provincial income tax with locally set rates. Several states in the U.S. and other industrialized OECD countries already allow municipalities to collect local income taxes, so I wonder if there may be an opportunity for Canada to learn from these jurisdictions about the benefits of innovative revenue-sharing arrangements at the municipal level. If our large cities are the main drivers of future prosperity, it seems to me that limiting revenue-raising tools at the municipal level to a combination of property taxes and user fees is a major impediment to fostering that critical mass of social, cultural, and physical infrastructure that will ensure and sustain global competitiveness over the long run. Read Slack and Bird’s article here: http://www.utoronto.ca/mcis/imfg/pdf/CitiesinCdnFederalism.pdf Great report. I absolutely agree with the general thrust that Canada has amazing national advantages to build on, but that we underachieve our prosperity potential on several fronts. On the topic of innovative tax approaches, one area that could have a salient impact on strengthening Canada’s advantages over the long run is municipal tax policy. Enid Slack, Director of the University of Toronto’s Institute on Municipal Finance and Governance, has written some great stuff on the fiscal challenges and opportunities facing Canada’s large cities and emerging mega-regions. In a recent article in Policy Options, she argues with Richard Bird that our country’s future prosperity is increasingly linked to the performance of its largest cities, but municipal governments simply do not have the fiscal capacity or authority to match their increasing expenditure responsibilities. In this context, they recommend that provincial governments should give large cities access to income taxes by allowing them to piggyback on the provincial income tax with locally set rates. Several states in the U.S. and other industrialized OECD countries already allow municipalities to collect local income taxes, so I wonder if there may be an opportunity for Canada to learn from these jurisdictions about the benefits of innovative revenue-sharing arrangements at the municipal level.

If our large cities are the main drivers of future prosperity, it seems to me that limiting revenue-raising tools at the municipal level to a combination of property taxes and user fees is a major impediment to fostering that critical mass of social, cultural, and physical infrastructure that will ensure and sustain global competitiveness over the long run. Read Slack and Bird’s article here: http://www.utoronto.ca/mcis/imfg/pdf/CitiesinCdnFederalism.pdf

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