NIPIGON – In Mayor Suzanne Kukko’s estimation, $200 cheques for everyone might not be the best use of $3 billion.
The province could get better bang for the big bucks by distributing those billions to municipalities, the Nipigon mayor said Wednesday.
Kukko was talking about the Ontario government’s decision to mail out $200 cheques for all adults in the province who had completed tax returns for themselves and their children.
The rebate payout, underway now, is expected to cost the provincial treasury about $3 billion.
“What I suggested in my pre-budget input a couple of weeks ago was that they redirect that $200 a person, which is going to total $3 billion … to the municipalities,” she told Newswatch.
If each municipality in Ontario got an equal share of the $3 billion, she said, that would mean more than $6.5 million per municipality.
A few million dollars “might be a drop in the bucket for a place like Toronto or Ottawa, but even for Thunder Bay it would be huge,” she said.
“And for Nipigon … it would be like someone winning the lottery.”
That sort of money could fill a lot of municipal needs, Kukko said.
“We need a new fire pumper truck, half a million dollars. We need a new garbage truck, half a million dollars. We need to buy a new part for our wastewater plant, which is $850,000.”
The mayor said she understands the political motives for sending out $200 rebate cheques but it may not be great public policy.
“If they were to give that money to the municipalities – I can definitely speak for the smaller ones – that would actually be putting more money in people’s pockets, in our taxpayers’ pockets, because we wouldn’t have to raise the property taxes up to the level that we’re going to to have to pay for all of this stuff.”
Kukko said infrastructure was a key topic at this week’s Rural Ontario Municipal Association conference in Toronto – “as it always is.”
On that note, the province had a few program announcements that captured municipal leaders’ interest.
One of them was Infrastructure Minister Kinga Surma’s announcement that the government is opening applications for $175 million in funding for projects to ensure safe drinking water, reliable wastewater services and protection in extreme weather events.
That’s good news as Nipigon needs to upgrade sewer infrastructure near the local hospital, where a long-term care expansion will be starting soon, she said.
