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User fees cancel Ontario tax cut

Ontario families are paying an exorbitant price for the Conservative government’s tax cut.

For every dollar of taxes cut, a user fee or hidden charge offsets any alleged savings. An Ontario household with three people living at the median income level saves $738 from the tax cut. At the same time, that household is hit with:

• $315 in property tax increases
• $47 in drug plan user fees
• $181 in new user fees to municipalities, universities and colleges, school boards and hospitals
• $24 in water and sewer charges
• $198 in interest charges on the money borrowed to pay for the tax cut

The real bottom line for the average Ontario household is a net increase in costs of $28. While the tax cut will hand thousands of dollars to high-income individuals and households, those most in need of assistance are being hit the hardest.

Dismantling services, increasing poverty

Deep cuts in federal transfers have had a far-reaching impact on families who rely on social assistance for housing, food and income support, as provincial and local governments reduce spending on these essential programs. Social services are being cut to the bone — everything from child care and child welfare programs to support for people with developmental and physical disabilities. As public funding disappears, private operators are eager to step in and provide the services — for a price. Many Canadians will not be able to afford the cost.

In what should be a national disgrace, more than three-quarters of a million people visited a food bank in March of 1999. The worsening situation for many low-income people has drawn international criticism from the United Nations Committee on Social and Economic Rights, which warns of a growing crisis among poor people — in particular women and children. The costs of this crisis are being shunted back onto individuals and into the home. Those costs are also being privatized as charitable contributions rise in a well-intentioned but ineffective attempt to bridge the poverty gap. With wages stagnant and household savings dwindling, the solution does not lie in individuals picking up the pieces.

User fees are a clear barrier preventing many low-income people — those who often need a service the most — from accessing public services. Every new fee further divides Canadian society into those who can afford to pay for health care or a school field trip or a needed prescription, and those who can’t. Increased fees for utilities, recreation services and libraries only add to the burden. This is not the legacy Canadians want to leave for future generations. Yet it is part and parcel of privatization.

Governments can retreat no further from their responsibility to provide quality public services. Indeed, they must advance in a new show of support and investment that will end further privatization of public services and stop the dangerous spread of user fees. The growth of the ‘pay-per society’ must be replaced with a society where once again the shared costs of building quality public services lead to the shared rewards of a more equitable society.