What promised to be a short meeting of Peterborough City Council found itself dragged into unforeseen deliberations on Monday August 28th, as the recommended tax rate increases for the upcoming 2024 budget once again became a topic of debate.

Opening the meeting, Mayor Jeff Leal invited Town Ward Councillor Alex Bierk to address the upcoming International Overdose Awareness day, which is to be observed on August 31st. Bierk stressed that the nation-wide overdose crisis—which is especially pronounced in Peterborough—had “affected [him] personally.” 

Bierk emphasized that recognizing the nature of many of these deaths as drug poisonings rather than overdoses is imperative, as “people aren’t dying from taking too much, they are dying from an unregulated drug supply.”

With 72 overdose deaths already this year, predictions show that 2023 is on pace to see the highest number of drug-related fatalities yet in Peterborough. By way of conclusion, Bierk stressed the humanitarian nature of the crisis. “These are all people who are deeply loved and known in our community.” 

With the agenda, Council entertained declarations from Councillors Beamer, Duguay, and Mayor Leal of respective conflicts of interest towards various items. Monaghan Ward Councillor Don Vassiliadis was absent from the meeting.

Moving into regular proceedings, Council heard from a single registered delegation—Richard Wellesley Staples—who urged council to reconsider budgetary guidelines laid out at the previous weeks’ meetings. “Where is the growth that’s in other parts of Ontario for this community?” he asked council members.

Staples presented several “key areas or takeaways,” which emphasized increases to the commercial and industrial tax rates as a means to relieve the burden on residential taxpayers—a number which he put as high as $21 million transferred between said portfolios and amortized over sixteen years.

Staples also spoke on recommendations for the improvement of the Peterborough Police Service. To his knowledge, he relayed, “there is only one person in charge of Crime Data Analysis” at the Service. To alleviate this burden, Staples urged councillors to consider a “Crime Data Analysis unit enabled by artificial general intelligence,” which he contended would improve the effectiveness of the Police Service in dealing with “incredibly complex” cases.

Following delegations, Council prepared to hear the consent agenda, the many items of which were otherwise fit to pass with a single motion. Upon a motion presented by Northcrest Ward Councillor Dave Haacke, however, the fresh wound of last week’s eight-hours of presentation and deliberation on the suggested tax rate increase found itself once again the subject of prodding.

Haacke motioned for City Staff to be instructed to design a budget reflecting a 4% all inclusive tax rate—rather than the 4.5%–5.5% range established the week prior—citing a number of reasons for the city’s stagnating income as well as several methods to further cut the tax rate increase.

“Covid has changed not just the world but the city also,” said Haacke. “While we’re not responsible for the rampant inflation, we do have to deal with the consequences.” Haacke argued that an increase in the number of people electing to work from home is responsible for markedly decreased revenue from downtown parking metres and garages—which have failed to return to pre-pandemic levels of use.

“We can’t be all things to all people,” Haacke stressed, saying that en lieu of increasing the tax rate in line with that demanded to maintain a status quo level of service, the city should instead seek to expand its tax base to artificially increase the number of payees into the operating budget.

“I submit that we need to make the land assembly and increasing our tax base a priority now,” Haacke said, proposing the city investigate the expansion and acquisition of further employment lands.

Ashburnham Ward Councillor Keith Riel was in agreement, saying of a proposed 5.5% increase, “that is not the number that the citizens of the city of Peterborough are going to feel.”

“I’m not fearmongering,” Riel stressed, arguing that with the Peterborough Regional Health Centre (PRHC) and Peterborough Police Service yet to produce their respective budgetary asks, the actual demand on the operational budget might prove much higher than originally anticipated. 

Riel also noted that PRHC and many other of Peterborough’s largest employers do not pay taxes, highlighting the city’s transition into a predominantly service-based economy. “When we were in the golden years in the city of Peterborough this was a manufacturing centre,” Riel said, echoing Haacke’s call for increasing tax opportunities from the commercial sector. “If we don’t get our own house in order … the number I predict is 6%–7%,” he proclaimed.

“I’m not here to say I want to lay people off,” Riel disclaimed, though attested to his belief in the need to find efficiencies in the budget so as to maintain the status quo at the lowest possible tax rate increase. “I can do that in a heartbeat,” he told council.

Otonabee Ward Councillor Kevin Duguay told council that “most comparable municipalities [tax rates] are much higher—6%, sometimes as high as 6, 7, 8, 9%...”

“I do not dispute the imperative nature of our municipality securing employment lands,” Duguay said, emphasizing that he would not, however, support a reduction of the all inclusive rate to 4%.

“Sometimes making things as low as you possibly could doesn’t give room to move the city forward,” stressed Ashburnham Councillor Gary Baldwin. While emphasizing his respect for his colleagues’ opinions, Baldwin equally opposed a 4% tax rate, asking council to consider “what can we reasonably afford to move the city forward?”

“We’re going to have to make some in-roads with respect to our rate,” Baldwin warned, “or we’re going to be in double-digit rate increases within three or four years.”

“We’re facing uncertain times, and we need to make an investment in our municipalities and our cities,” said Town Ward Councillor Joy Lachica, echoing dissent against a 4% rate. “We need more than a band-aid, we need investment.”

Councillor Bierk echoed his Town Ward colleague, declaring to council that “We have a path to choose tonight.” 

By way of example, Bierk relayed an anecdote wherein responding to feedback from community members about litter and the cleanliness of public space, council were informed that there was only one staff member whose job it was to attend to the City’s 40+ municipal parks. 

Bierk argued that council finds itself faced with the option to take “the path of comfort,”—that which emphasizes keeping taxes low above all else—or to take a “more difficult” decision, which “requires character,” that being to invest in the future of the city.

“We are in an extremely extraordinary situation this year as a city,” declared Monaghan Ward Councillor Matt Crowley, stressing the extreme pressures under which the city finds itself as it sets this guideline which is crucial to its future. 

“Bill 23 has cut us off at the knees, interest rates are skyrocketing. We have an insurance rate that is insanity right now. It’s crazy the amount of external pressures we are feeling right now as a city,” Crowley said of the current predicament.

Crowley urged both councillors and citizens to bear this in mind with regards to the tax rate, saying that “Nothing we are doing here as a council is punitive.” The tax rate is the consequence of innumerable interlocking issues, he stressed. “It is not so simple as council setting an arbitrary number and rolling with it.”

Northcrest Ward Councillor Andrew Beamer—in his own words “one of the councilors who usually fights for lower taxes”—took a rather contrary view to some of his colleagues. “Efficiencies and cuts,” declared Beamer. “I believe there is an appetite for this.”

Beamer specifically honed in on cuts to daycare—which the city partially subsidizes—as a means to increase efficiencies. Such cuts were just one of several ways Beamer put forward as means of reducing the tax rate at all costs, which also notably included using interest from the Casino and Peterborough Distribution Inc. (PDI) to subsidize the operating budget.

Councillor Bierk replied to Beamer’s proposals, saying “I appreciate you were very thoughtful with your words and your ideas, but I don’t think that makes it absolute.”

“I am one of those families that represent the working class, in the $35 000 [annual income] category,” Bierk attested. “We survive off daycare, and it’s hard to find even though we subsidize it.” Bierk noted that despite being month to month, both he and his wife would both far prefer an increase of a couple hundred dollars in taxes to the prospective collapse of City services they depend upon. 

“I am really fearful … it was really scary to hear what would be on the chopping block, what would be pared down, and what we just would not be able to do,” Bierk said of the previous meeting’s forecast for a proposed 3% tax rate. 

Councillor Gary Baldwin asked for clarification regarding Beamer’s proposed diversion of Casino interest revenue into the operating budget.

Corporate and Legislative Services Commissioner Richard Freymond responded that, “If we start to pull in money to the operating budget, either from the casino or the sale of PDI, we will have to do so year after year. Otherwise we are merely delaying those tax rate increases.”

Freymond further clarified that the difference between the 4.5% low end of the previously approved target rate and Haacke’s proposed 4% all inclusive rate, amounted to “about $20 a year” per taxpayer. 

Otonabee Ward Councillor Lesley Parnell subsequently attested that “There’s no way I would ever agree to put money from the PDI into operating,” roundly opposing Beamer’s recommendation.

Mayor Leal closed out discussions of the motion, noting that “I certainly value the discussion we’ve had this evening.” He stressed that his time in office has taught him that “Tax policy should be efficient and effective”, adding that “I am an evidence and data based person.” 

“I can guarantee everyone tonight that there are double-digit tax increases in our future,” Leal told those assembled. “It might not be 2023, 2024, or 2025, but it's coming before the end of the decade if we don’t make modest concessions tonight.”

“I don’t want to raise taxes,” he declared, but added the previously approved rate was a necessity if Peterborough did not want to find itself behind comparable cities with which it finds itself already struggling to keep pace.

If council were to capitulate to a 4% tax rate, he warned, “we’ll be behind Kingtson, we’ll be behind Guelph, we’ll be behind Kitchener, we’ll be behind Waterloo.”

A vote on the motion to set the tax rate increase guide to 4% failed with two votes in favour and eight opposed. Despite having earlier verbally proclaimed his support, Councillor Beamer voted against the motion. Only Councillors Haacke and Riel voted in support.