Councillor wants numbers on cost of pot legalization for city

Coun. Sam Merulla wants to head off new local taxpayer costs to cover increased bylaw and policing enforcement — and public health services — from legalized pot well before legalization happens this summer.

“Fifty per cent of what we tax for now has nothing to do with city council,” he said, adding that much of it is a result of services once funded by the province being downloaded onto municipalities.

Merulla has put councillors on notice that he’s introducing a motion at their Jan. 24 meeting to get city staff to find out the city’s costs of implementing marijuana legalization — and ask the province for a commitment to fully cover those costs. The province is getting a windfall in marijuana sales taxes after all, he says.

“It’s important to be proactive, rather than reactive.

“We now have no understanding of how the province plans to fund the increased demands on public health, police and bylaw enforcements,” he said. “We need to be ahead of the curve.”

He’s hoping his motion will not only provide an understanding of the impact on local taxes, but will also be a catalyst for the province to devise a formula to fund the municipal costs tied to legalization.

Merulla has no idea what the costs to Hamilton will be. But when told The Calgary Herald last month reported Calgary’s mayor expects legalized pot to cost his city more than $10 million a year, Merulla said “Wow. Calgary’s double our size, but that’s pretty staggering though.”

If Hamilton’s costs, adjusted for size, are comparable to Calgary’s, it would mean about a one-and-ahalf per cent property tax increase in this city just for legalization impacts, Merulla said.