Statement from Burlington Mayor Regarding the 2019 Ontario Budget

Please see below the Statement I released today on the 2019 Ontario Budget.Burlington, Ont. — April 15, 2019On behalf of the City of Burlington and Burlington City Council, I would like to express my disappointment in some aspects of the 2019 Ontario Budget that was released on April 11 — particularly, the decision to cancel the incremental increases in Provincial gas-tax funding over the next 10 years.In 2017, the Province announced the doubling of the gas tax from the current 2 cents per litre to 4 cents per litre. The funding was projected to increase to 2.5 cents/litre in 2019-2020, 3 cents/litre in 2020-21 and 4 cents/litre in 2021-22.The City of Burlington currently receives $2.2 million, based on the 2 cents/litre model — over the next decade, and based on the former planned increases, this funding would have amounted to an additional $19.25 million in that 10-year span. The source for this 2017 information is available online at bit.ly/ProvinceGasTaxProgram.This is money that has been taken out of the pockets of our City and residents — funding that could have been used for essential transit projects, such as buying additional transit vehicles, adding more routes, extending the hours of service, implementing fare strategies and improving accessibility.We also learned that the Province is planning cuts to the Conservation Authority Flood Forecasting and Natural Hazards Management funding by 50 per cent. This represents balancing the provincial books by downloading costs to municipalities and cutting funding obligations to cities and agencies.Cuts to flood mitigation and public safety initiatives are the worst places to make cuts and not where they should be done. As a board member of Conservation Halton, I know we continually look for savings wherever possible. The Province needs to contribute their agreed upon share to this important work.Downloading the aforementioned costs to municipalities increases the likelihood of increased taxes on our residents to maintain the initiatives and services they count on and at a level they should expect.As a City, we are particularly disheartened by the fact that these cuts were not publicly disclosed during the official announcement of the Provincial Budget last week.