Dear Minister Ecker,

In light of the fact that no other Province in Canada expects its municipalities to pay for social services off the municipal tax bill, I am asking, as a Flamborough resident within the City of Hamilton, that your Ministry investigate, via an audit, the existence of financial shortfalls due to a number of inequities we are facing. In fact, Ontario is the only province, state or region in the entire G8 industrial democracies, which include Canada, Great Britain, the United States, Russia, France, Italy, Germany and Japan, in which social service costs are born off the backs of the municipal taxpayer.

Hamilton has seen $117 million downloaded from the Province in social service costs this year alone and unlike the City of Toronto, we don't enjoy the luxury of social service cost pooling throughout the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) communities. In Hamilton, we are expected to bear the cost of $117 million downloaded by the Province out of our municipal tax base. Twice, Hamilton council has asked the Province to at least be included in the GTA social services pooling. Twice, Hamilton has been turned down. As a resident who has been forced by the Province into the New City of Hamilton, I would ask how the Province can acknowledge the need for spreading out the bill in Toronto and yet Hamilton is expected to carry the burden alone.

I would ask the Province to investigate what city staff believes to be revenue shortfalls, due to "payments-in-lieu" that have been frozen at a 17-year-old rate on institutions, such as hospitals, colleges, universities and jails. The city's Finance staff estimates the Province's payments-in-lieu total as much as $70 million in lost revenue because the City of Hamilton's largest employers are the health services industry.

I would also ask that your Ministry calculate the inequities facing our commercial and industrial education taxes. The Province's own Bill 140 states that if the commercial-industrial tax rates are above the provincial average, which Hamilton's are, the difference must come off the residential tax base. In Hamilton's case, that difference is $27.8 million.

And finally, I would ask your Ministry to justify the Current Value Assessment (CVA) increases that Flamborough has had to bear over the past two assessment periods. Our average assessment increase of 12.2 per cent in 2001, followed up by an even larger average assessment increase of 16.6 per cent in 2002, adds an unacceptable burden onto the municipal tax bills in Flamborough.

Given all these inequities being faced by Hamilton, I am requesting, as a Flamborough taxpayer, that your Ministry conduct an audit on Hamilton's financial shortfall and rectify that shortfall with additional Provincial funding.

Sincerely

Name:_________________________________________________________

Address:_______________________________________________________

Attention Flamborough resident: Simply take this letter to Flamborough Town Hall (Monday through Friday - 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.) and ask them to fax it to Minister Ecker's office at 416-325-0374. Or mail it to: Minister Janet Ecker, 7 Queen's Park Crescent, 7th Floor, Toronto, Ontario M7A 1Y7.