For the residents of Park extension, owning property comes with great expectations from the city especially in view of the amount of municipal taxes parkexers are called to pay. In recent days, whether it is the pandemic or the new financial crisis and the rising inflation, more and more people are struggling to shoulder the increases of their expenses.
How can Montreal vary its sources of revenue and achieve its ambitions while respecting the population’s ability to pay? The city of Montreal is listening via a reflection on taxation which aims to find solutions to finance the activities of the City other than through property taxes.
According to the city’s press release, “At a time when cities have to assume growing expenses, Montréal is working to ensure adequate, stable and recurring funding for municipal services, without passing the bill on to future generations.”
So, in order to establish a new fiscal and budgetary framework, the City wants to initiate a dialogue around several initiatives by organizing a Montreal Taxation Forum on November 7, 2022
This event will bring together around a hundred members of Montreal civil society and partners of the Montreal agglomeration, from the municipal, economic, community, environmental, cultural and academic sectors, as well as those transportation and housing. The objective is to establish the guiding principles that will guide the next steps of the project. The forum will provide an up-to-date and concerted view of the roles and responsibilities of the metropolis, its budgetary limits and the importance of fiscal and territorial fairness.
During this day, the City of Montreal will present the financial issues and the challenges it encounters to ensure a resilient, united and safe city for future generations. Montreal must find solutions, while considering the following issues:
The City must come to terms with the maintenance deficits of its infrastructures and territorial inequities inherited from the past.
Montreal plays a leading role in Quebec in many areas. The metropolis assumes expenses that go beyond mere services to its citizens.
The financial and fiscal framework inherited from the 20th century is no longer adapted to current realities. The City wants to work with the population to find solutions to better diversify its sources of revenue.
Summit on municipal taxation in 2023
This summit will bring together all the partners from the municipal sector and civil society. The objective will be to identify concrete avenues for savings and new sources of recurring revenue for the metropolis.
The summit will build a roadmap for the renegotiation of the 2024 Fiscal Pact with the provincial government. The solutions retained will be presented during the renewal of the 2020-2024 financial partnership agreement, concluded between the municipalities of Quebec and the provincial government. This agreement expires on December 31, 2024
