Hampstead Mayor leads tax protest
By Joel Goldenberg
The Suburban
Hampstead Mayor Jeremy Levi said he proposed, and the other mayors of demerged cities discussed, the possibility of all of them withholding their annual contributions to the agglomeration for such services as public transit, fire and police.
Levi was responding to Sharon Freedman, a regular at several council meetings. The CSL resident said demerged cities are paying a great deal to the agglomeration, “and getting very few services,” and she also brought up the ongoing delays of the Cavendish Blvd. extension between CSL and St. Laurent.
“Cannot the cities get together — I need some leadership here — and withhold their [agglomeration portions] until we can get services done and put the money in a trust fund — we’re not stealing the money. Why are we paying out this money when we’re getting bupkis? (Yiddish for absolutely nothing).”
Levi replied that all 16 demerged municipalities agree with Freedman’s sentiment.
“Last year, we had a private meeting of the mayors of the demerged municipalities and I proposed something similar to what you were saying,” the Mayor added. “I said if one of us refuses to pay the agglomeration, we will immediately be put under provincial trusteeship. We can’t do it.”
However, “I said if all 16 of us do it simultaneously and we just refuse to pay the absurd increase in the agglomeration fee, the province of Quebec would not have the administrative capacity to put 16 demerged municipalities under trusteeship — it would create a crisis. There were some mayors who liked the idea, and some that didn’t have the….What we’ve seen in the past two months is a resurgence for that passion for the first time that I’ve been at the agglomeration council meetings.We are now vocally voting against the increase.”
Regarding that latter point, at the February Montreal West council meeting, Mayor Beny Masella, also president of the Association of Suburban Municipalities, said that the organization has “taken a firmer position with the City of Montreal.
“Faced with the failure of our efforts to reach a new agreement on the sharing of the expenses of the Montreal agglomeration, we, the mayors of the Association of Suburban Municipalities (ASM) must now take a firm position. From now on, we will systematically oppose any expenditure or financial measure proposed by the Agglomeration, unless a direct, tangible, and equitable benefit is clearly established for one, several, or all the demerged municipalities. This decision, taken unanimously by the mayors of the ASM, is in line with the opposition already expressed last December regarding the adoption of the Agglomeration’s 2024 budget.”
Masella pointed out that at the previous agglomeration meeting, “the mayors of the ASM unanimously expressed their opposition to nine objects of expenditure deemed inequitable, representing more than $63M.
“For us, the situation is even more unacceptable considering that, in the fall of 2023, the City of Montreal itself acknowledged, through its Executive Committee Chair, that the current expense distribution system and the resulting municipal shares had reached their limits.”
Levi acknowledged that the dissenting votes from the ASM members are symbolic as the City of Montreal has 88 percent of the vote on the agglomeration council.
“It’s an unfair system. It’s taxation without representation. Last year, Hampstead paid more than 51 percent toward the agglomeration and we’re fed up.” n
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