Paul Pagnuelo's Letter to City Councillors, 24 Sep/01
Is amalgamation working?
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Mayor and Members of Council
City of Kawartha Lakes
Lindsay, Ontario
Dear Mayor and Councilors,
The following letter was sent separately by e-mail to all members of Council on September 24, 2001.
I would have contacted you by phone but unfortunately, the City's website does not provide a listing of the home phone numbers of Council members.
I am writing you as a resident and taxpayer of the City of Kawartha Lakes with a request that Council revisit its recent decision to provide the Ross Memorial Hospital in Lindsay with $7 million for capital expansion. While Council's gesture might be heart-warming, it had no right to decide this issue.
I am aware that some of you have argued that our hospitals are an essential service. While I couldn't agree more, let's be clear about a fundamental point. Hospitals are an essential provincial service and hospital funding is a joint provincial/federal responsibility. There is no constitutional basis to the claim that hospitals are a municipal service and that hospital funding should in any way be a municipal responsibility.
For City Council to commit local taxpayers to pay for anything through our property taxes that is not a municipal service opens a Pandora's box. It sets a very dangerous precedent to fund future social services and other worthy charitable causes from an already strained property tax system.
It raises the question of " What's next"? Will school boards be asking City Council to fund new schools on top of our provincial taxes and the provincially mandated education portion of our property taxes? Many charitable organizations can rightfully claim that the services they provide are essential. Does this mean that Council should or will fund every charitable request that comes before it?
If Council believes that it is empowered to fund whatever it wishes that is not directly related to the provision of municipal services, where does it draw the line? Does this mean that in the future a majority may decide to fund whatever it deems to be in the public interest? If so, how far will it go? Can we expect corporate bailouts of local failing businesses, political donations to the warchests of provincial and federal governments, MPs and MPPs, and financial assistance to union and social justice activists, animal rights groups and anti-globalization proponents?
Some of you have argued that the Ross Memorial Hospital is a resource to the community as a whole. Undoubtedly a large number of residents in the former Town of Lindsay and several of the former municipalities on its immediate outskirts support the Ross Memorial as their hospital of choice. But the mere fact that all of the municipalities in the former Victoria County have been forced to amalgamate should not be construed as meaning that the Ross Memorial should or will become the hospital of choice of all residents of our new City.
Council's decision ignores an important fact. Many of the wards in our new City fall within the catchment area of other hospitals. To expect those of us, who traditionally have used family doctors and their associated hospitals in Port Perry, Bowmanville, Oshawa, Peterborough and Minden, to fund with our property taxes a hospital we don't use in Lindsay is not only patently unfair but also discriminatory.
I read the recent comments of a letter writer to Kawartha This Week who supports Council's decision. In it he argues that the use of hospitals outside of our jurisdiction by residents of the City of Kawartha Lakes, unless done so because of a serious medical emergency, is unacceptable and irresponsible. His comments sent a chill up my spine. Firstly, the City of Kawartha Lakes has no jurisdiction over the Ross Memorial Hospital. Secondly, he is oblivious to the sacrosanct principles of Medicare, in particular those dealing with portability and universality. Thirdly, in a free and democratic society no has the right to suggest, let alone demand, what doctors or hospitals we must use.
I for one suffer from a neuro-muscular disease and require treatment by a specialist at the Toronto General. A good friend of mine who lives in Bobcaygeon requires cancer treatment in Peterborough and Kingston. When my family moved to Little Britain in 1982, we chose to use a family doctor and the hospital in Port Perry because of proximity. When moving to Pontypool in 1992, we chose to remain with our family doctor and hospital in Port Perry for a variety of reasons. Which doctors or hospitals we use and which hospitals we wish to support in their fundraising efforts, for whatever reason, is and always should remain a personal not a political decision.
Citizens across the province historically have played a role in the fundraising efforts of their hospitals of choice through individual and corporate charitable donations. Moreover, when doing so, they are provided with a charitable tax receipt that they can offset towards their provincial and federal income tax. However, using the property tax base is quite a very different matter. Charitable giving by definition is voluntary and a very personal choice. It should not be forced on anyone, especially by politicians.
Adding to the tax burden of homeowners, particularly those living in wards that will be hit with massive property tax increases next year, will push many with very limited incomes into dire financial straits. For others, it may mean curtailing donations to their favourite charity or church because Council has decided to divert their donations to the charitable cause of its choosing.
To compound matters, Council had no mandate from voters to decide this issue. Not one member of Council raised the idea in last November's municipal election. Moreover, Council sought no public consultation on the matter before it decided to overstep its authority.
The matter of funding the Ross Memorial or for that matter any hospital should be put to the residents of the City by way of a binding referendum, employing Ontario's Direct Democracy Through Municipal Referendums Act. Council should exempt those wards from sharing in the cost, where the majority of their taxpayers object to a specific levy or tax hike for hospital funding.
The philosophical issue of funding the capital needs of our hospitals through property taxes must receive a full public airing. It should be we the taxpayers of the City who decide the issue by referendum, not those of you on Council who support the Ross Memorial as your personal hospital of choice.
On one final note, I wish to mention that Council's decision to fund the Ross Memorial Hospital also raises an important legal question. I trust that as a member of Council you are fully conversant with the Municipal Act and the provisions dealing with conflict of interest and the objects and powers of a Municipality and its elected Council. If not, you would be well advised to recommend to Council that it seek external legal opinion in this regard.
I hope that as a member of Council, you will stop and reflect and fully consider the moral, ethical, political and possible legal consequences, if Council does not reverse its decision on this matter.
I would appreciate hearing from you and thank you for the opportunity to express my views on what I consider to be a very important issue.
Sincerely,
Paul Pagnuelo
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