Prince George Signs On to Help Rebuild Haiti
By 250 News
Tuesday, January 19, 2010 04:05 AM
Prince George, B.C. – The Federation of Canadian Municipalities (of which Prince George is a member) is calling on its membership to provide support for Haiti.
The FCM says the quake which hit Haiti one week ago, is the worst natural disaster ever to hit the Americas “This crisis calls for an unparalleled level of solidarity and collaboration from all Canadian municipalities.”
The FCM is encouraging a broad-based national municipal reconstruction effort for Haiti once the emergency response phase is over. “In order to help restore the basic local services that have been destroyed by the earthquake, expertise will be required in such areas as planning, waste management, water and sanitation, public works and housing.” The FCM is prepared to send a special municipal assessment team to Haiti to evaluate needs and propose a municipal response towards reconstruction efforts.
While Montreal has long established linkages with Haiti and has already launched an emergency response, communities across Canada are encouraged to donate to established relief organizations and to report their contributions to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities.
Councillor Garth Frizzell says we all want to do something to help and the FCM has a well established program to bring their experts to such areas in need. Council has voted unanimously to register with the FCM as a community willing to assist. In 2005, the city took part in the efforts to revive the communities hit by the tsunami. Employees who wanted to donate money could have dollars taken off their pay cheques and the City made it possible for staff who wanted to assist in the rebuilding efforts to head overseas to assist.
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Posted by: IMO on January 19 2010 8:08 AM
Yes municipalities have a lot in the way of planning around services and services management, as well as specialty skills like firefighters ect... but they are not the right level of government to be funding international foreign aid.
We have structure in Canada for a reason, or at least we should. The federal government has the responsibility of foreign aid and for good reason... coordination and logistics are the least of the reasons... financial and the collection of taxes and the monetizing of the dollar are only things the federal government can legitimately bring to bear in these situations, and thus they have the responsibility to fund these kinds of disasters not municipal homeowners.
A home owner should be taxed only for the services the home owner is rendered. This has not only effectively been thrown out the window in the name of the latest disaster, but its been the case for a long time in other ways as well.
Why do home owners have an obligation to pay taxes to fund the ultraistic view points of politicians and voters that are not paying property taxes? What if those said home owners already make their own donations through personal contributions? Can’t the city set up a fund to make ultraistic expenditures that is funded by donation from the people that have their own vision for society, rather than just stick it to the captive home owner every time?
If municipal politicians want to get involved in foreign aid, then they should be either running for federal politics, or asking for a federal funded program to enable municipalities to bring their skills to the table. I don’t see that happening.
Our tax system is completely broken. Our politicians tax the captive where ever they can at a municipal level for things completely unrelated to the taxed. The federal government and the provincial government should have clearly defined areas of taxation, and responsibilities tied to that taxation... and the taxation should at least attempt to represent a direct linkage between those making the decisions to be taxed and those that are taxed.
Right now we have municipalities that just simply raise taxes on the home owner to fund what ever charity or special interest plan can get them votes even if the new service is more properly funded by the federal or provincial government that have vastly different abilities to raise taxes to fund those responsibilities. How can the way things are now be called democratic?
Haiti obviously needs a lot of help and yes we as a country should be doing all we can... but we shouldn't be stupid about it for the sake of politics and further entrench the very slippery slope that is sucking our ability to function as a democracy. Some of these people need to be reined in IMO and be forced to take some civics classes before they are allowed to belong to organizations like the Federation of (communist) Canadian Municipalities.