Tax hike questioned in light of big surplus

The official opposition at Montreal city hall says that a $139.5-million surplus found in city coffers proves that a controversial tax hike deemed essential by the administration of Valérie Plante was unnecessary.

“This large surplus shows not only that the former administration left Montreal in excellent financial health, but that Mayor Plante knew perfectly well that the city was headed toward a surplus when she prepared the budget for 2018,” opposition leader Lionel Perez said in a news release.

“Given the circumstances, the water tax should never have been increased ... and the increase (in taxes) for non-residential properties should have been limited to 0.9 per cent, as it had been in 2016 and 2017, rather than impose on Montreal businesses an increase of three per cent.”

Perez’s reaction came hours after the city made public its financial statements for 2017, noting that a total surplus of $139.5 million had been realized through an increase in provincial government transfer payments as well as the issuance of building permits and an increase in real estate transfer fees.

The opposition has seized upon the announced surplus as a clear contradiction of the financial situation described by Plante when she was elected last November and claimed her new administration had been handed a $358-million deficit by the previous regime.

Noting there was a nearly halfbillion-dollar difference between the figures cited by Plante then and the surplus announced Thursday, Perez wrote that “either these people brazenly lied to us or they are incompetent and don’t know what they’re doing. When you consider that they are managing a $5-billion municipal budget, there’s reason for worry.”