Municipal funding from government a sham

Some of my comments in this letter are in reference to a recent story in the Cape Breton Post (“Seeking new Ideas,” June 6).

Cape Breton Regional Municipality (CBRM) council’s general committee will begin a new effort to look at planning and economic development issues.

Coun.Earlene MacMullin mentioned about the CBRM struggles job-wise and economic-wise. She also said there is a need to find out where our strengths and weaknesses are and added that CBRM doesn’t have much money.

I agree completely with her. We still have a huge amount of debt. That isn’t going to go away anytime soon, if ever.

CBRM would be in a better place if we were getting the proper funding from the equalization program that we are entitled to. We would have services that are not available now and our young people would have reasons to stay here.

The biggest problem in the CBRM is the lack of equalization fairness for this municipality from the government of Nova Scotia. Although the province receives on an annual basis a very substantial equalization transfer from the government of Canada, which is based upon the government of Canada’s commitment set out in Section 36 of the Constitution, the government of Nova Scotia has capped the amount of equalization funding provided to Nova Scotia’s municipal governments since 2002-03.

CBRM is continuing to receive a pittance from the government of Nova Scotia, the same for all the other municipalities in the province. Of the $1.822 billion that comes to Nova Scotia from the federal government, only $274 million is sent because of the low fiscal capacity of the municipalities.

Unfortunately, the province only redistributes about $32 million to the 40 or so municipalities, which are underfunded.

So where is the fairness with this government? And, furthermore, the government isn’t abiding by Section 36 of the Constitution.

Until Equalization Fairness for all municipalities is dealt with in a fair manner here in Nova Scotia we here in the CBRM will continue to struggle. Young people will continue to leave for a better life somewhere else.

I am hoping our CBRM councillors will look at the equalization unfairness in this municipality once again and this will be an open discussion. There are four new councillors who need to be aware if they aren’t already of the unfairness to the equalization funding. Martha Ross Sydney Mines