Unfettered

So that is it. Shire Hall needs the money. The province says it can take it. So, Shire Hall is taking it. No meaningful consultation. No process. Just a headlong rush to grab a share of the cash flow from local businesses. Because it can.

Council agreed last week—unanimously—to ram through a new Municipal Accommodation Tax (MAT) without notifying the folks who will be required to collect and remit it—and to do so beginning on June 1. Your municipal government has obliterated any semblance of due, fair or reasonable process. This bodes ominously for other aspects of our community and economy.

Once more, I must advise the reader that I am profoundly conflicted in writing about this issue, as I operate a small inn in Wellington and I, currently, sit as chair of the County’s Community and Economic Development Commission. These roles surely colour my views on the subject.

Once more I must state that I have no principled objection to the MAT. The manner this municipality has pursued this new taxing power, however, is plainly irresponsible. Shire Hall has concluded it can make consequential decisions without consultation. Without notification. Without even letting those affected know it is coming. Quite separate from the tax itself, this is a dangerous precedent.

If you aren’t fussed about this decision because it affects just a few folks, I suggest you brace yourself. A municipal council unbridled by the need to consult and communicate is a threat to every aspect of life the municipality touches. Roads, libraries, parks, town halls, waterworks. Affordability.

It is why the province has long been cautious about extending local governments’ taxing power. It is less a governing body and more of a club. There is no opposition. No built-in adversarial system to represent dissenting or minority views.

Instead, local government is a consensusforming group. It works well enough for many municipal functions. But it doesn’t work well at all when it comes to making complex financial decisions. It breaks down altogether if this club decides it no longer needs to hear from constituents impacted by its decisions.

A committee of council agreed unanimously last week to approve the new tax—4 per cent on roofed accommodation. (Oddly, trailers and tents are exempted. As is everyone who stays at the provincial parks. Items that would have provided fodder for interesting debate—had that opportunity existed.)

A handful of folks ventured to the podium looking for basic information last Wednesday. They had only heard about the MAT and the June 1 implementation in the Times or from folks who had read it.

No one explained to them why they had been left in the dark. Indeed, one councillor suggested Shire Hall bore no duty to advise those upon whom it was imposing a new tax— that it was their (the business’s) responsibility to understand the ever-evolving patchwork of regulations and taxation that blankets them. It was a novel argument, but quite divorced from the practise of every other level of government— where fundamental changes in tax law are subject to broad-based community, legal and economic consultation, and scrutiny.

More problematic, the councillor’s view shatters the purpose of a representative democracy. A council that wakes up one morning and decides it can do whatever it chooses for four years should be an existential worry for all residents and businesses.

Nor was there any flexibility in the plan. Council was unmoved by the rising chorus of voices seeking to push back against the implementation of the new tax set to be imposed in less than 90 days. With sharp-eyed focus, council dismissed any consideration of delaying the tax for any reason—for a delay would deprive them of this revenue.

Consensus decision-making breaks down when governing a sprawling government that spends upward of $60 million a year. A form of Stockholm syndrome takes over. Members are urged to adopt absolute loyalty to the institution. Consensusforming bodies are also highly susceptible to groupthink. Bunker mentality tends to set in and calcify when the institution matters entirely, while the people they serve represent a problem to be solved.

Municipal government was always at risk of following this dark path. Indeed, it goes some way in explaining how council after council has ratcheted up the tax burden by 400 per cent over the past 20 years while the population—the number of folks carrying this burden— has declined. It explains runaway waterworks bills and user fees. It explains the deluded proclamations of financial sustainability as a priority in a municipality where our infrastructure is decaying many times faster than we can afford to rebuild it. It is how we dream up and pay for fantastical $100 million plans to upgrade Wellington’s waterworks for a quadrupling of the village’s population. Simply put, there is wildly insufficient internal pushback inside Shire Hall. Take away public opportunities to voice their concerns and we are left with a rogue government.

Council was asked directly last week why it didn’t consult with the folks upon whom it will impose the new tax. The question went unanswered. That should concern us all.

rick@wellingtontimes.ca