UPSET OVER BUDGET
Arseneault leaves Plante's party
In 2017, Valérie Plante made ambitious promises not only to Montrealers citywide, but specifically to the city's most populous borough, Côte-des-neiges—notre-dame-de- Grâce, to fix the fiscal imbalance that has chronically underfunded our borough for years.
That promise was inspired by Projet Montréal's philosophy that small is beautiful, that our boroughs can act as laboratories of democracy and help enrich citizens' lives. I have espoused this philosophy for more than eight years as a volunteer, donor, organizer, staffer, candidate and councillor.
Yet the fiscal imbalance has only worsened under this administration. Transfers for the operating budget have lagged inflation, placing a strain on our local revenues. The borough is deprived of local taxes on institutional buildings, creating a huge budget hole. Capital investments have dried up as local budgets have shrunk and central-city largesse has gone elsewhere. The 2021 budget and 2021-2030 capital plan exacerbate these problems.
The problem starts with the operating budget. In C.D.N.N.D.G., four of every five operational dollars come from central transfers, which under this administration have increased by only one per cent per year. This fails to cover inflation, which effectively means we receive less each year from downtown. This forces us to rely more heavily on the local tax to make ends meet, but here too we are hobbled: institutional buildings constitute almost one-sixth of our real-estate value but are sheltered from local taxes by law. However, the city centre is compensated for lost revenues by the government. Next year, Montreal will be reimbursed $285 million while C.D.N.-N.D.G. is deprived of more than $3 million.
Investments are equally lopsided. Our local capital budget has shrunk in real terms over the past decade and will shrink further over the next. Instead of letting us identify and finance our own needs, Montreal spends 50-per-cent more on local responsibilities than the boroughs. Hardly any of this largesse comes to C.D.N.-N.D.G. Of the $239 million to be spent citywide on borough responsibilities in 2021, only $10.5 million will go to C.D.N.-N.D.G. What is more, Mayor Plante's 2021-2030 capital plan pushes our borough's biggest projects down the road, while her Pink Line's promised route through N.D.G. has been thrown into doubt. Our citizens and community groups need help now, not in five years.
The mayor will reply that this budget has plenty of good in it, and who can be against more green space, affordable housing, and reduced transit fares? This misses the point entirely.
Sometimes we are one city, and oftentimes we are 19 boroughs. And when we are 19 boroughs, we must be given the means to fulfil our local promises to constituents. The only way to do this is to correct the fiscal imbalance. At a minimum, this would reimburse the borough for lost local taxes on institutional properties, index borough investments to inflation and decentralize more financial capacity to the boroughs themselves on an equitable basis. Sadly, this approach is anathema to a mayor who has centralized power in her cabinet, so I have lost confidence in her ability to govern equitably and keep her promises to C.D.N.-N.D.G.
Phrased differently, the mayor's budget has created a conflict of loyalty — of loyalty to this party of which I have been a member for over eight years, and for which I have fought and even lost elections, and of loyalty to what I perceive to be the interests of my district and borough. I no longer believe it possible to resolve this conflict from within the Projet Montréal caucus, which is why I have voted against the budget and moved to sit as an independent.
I have done what I believe to be right by my constituents, and I encourage my fellow citizens to join me next year in sending a clear message to Valérie Plante: we deserve more than broken promises.