randito

TORONTO – Un nouveau gouvernement libéral consacrera une somme garantie de plus de 70 milliards de dollars sur dix ans à l’amélioration de l’infrastructure essentielle et qui assure la compétitivité du Canada et notre qualité de vie. Nous allouerons tout excédent budgétaire annuel imprévu aux projets d’infrastructure. C’est ce qu’a annoncé aujourd’hui le chef du Parti libéral du Canada, Stéphane Dion. « Le Canada doit surmonter un déficit en infrastructure de centaines de milliards de dollars, a dit M. Dion. Un gouvernement libéral investira massivement pour réduire ce déficit, en partenariat avec les provinces, les territoires, nos villes et nos collectivités. » En période de ralentissement économique, nous, les libéraux, comprenons que le gouvernement doit faire des investissements dans ces domaines afin d’accroître notre compétitivité tout en créant de bons emplois bien rémunérés pour les Canadiens. En plus d’honorer les ententes-cadres déjà conclues avec les provinces et les territoires, notre investissement de 70 milliards de dollars financera les priorités libérales, dont la construction et la rénovation de l’infrastructure stratégique, la création d’un fonds spécial pour les transports en commun, l’élaboration d’un Fonds pour les petites collectivités, l’amélioration de nos portes d’entrée, de nos corridors et de nos infrastructures frontalières et la rénovation et l’amélioration de nos installations sportives et récréatives. C’est un gouvernement qui a créé le transfert aux municipalités de la taxe sur l’essence pour les aider à investir dans leurs importants besoins en infrastructure. Et c’est un gouvernement libéral qui indexera ce transfert à la croissance économique pour que nos villes et collectivités puissent se développer en suivant la croissance économique. Sur les dix ans de mise en œuvre de notre plan, les municipalités obtiendront près de 25 milliards de dollars grâce aux améliorations des transferts de la taxe sur l’essence. Ces mesures complètent l’engagement pris par les libéraux en février 2008 de consacrer tout excédent budgétaire imprévu, déduction faite d’une réserve pour éventualités de 3 milliards de dollars, à l’infrastructure, particulièrement à l’infrastructure « verte ». Un nouveau gouvernement libéral créera aussi une banque de l’infrastructure qui offrira à tous les pouvoirs publics les financements à taux d’intérêt bas dont ils ont besoin pour mener à bien des projets d’infrastructure comme l’installation de centrales électriques régionales ou de chemins de fer pour trains à grande vitesse. « Les villes et municipalités canadiennes sont le moteur de notre économie, a conclu M. Dion. Sans financement conséquent et à long terme en faveur des infrastructures, notre économie comme notre environnement souffriront. Notre plan donne au Canada l’élan économique dont il a besoin pour répondre à ce besoin et surtout, contribue à nos efforts visant à réduire notre empreinte environnementale. » Source: http://www.liberal.ca/story_14704_f.aspx

Or maybe a west coast /east coast thing. SF'ers, seattlites, vancouverites seem to be annoyingly optomistic, new yorkers, toronto poeple, and montreals, IMHO, love to bitch.

Typical Montrealers attitudes. Rather than accept a challenge and try and change things, they get defensive. Admitting there is a problem and proposing solutions is not negative. It means you care about the city and want to make it better.

in response to habsfans' question: what crisis? if the city is not sustainable, that is a crisis. if the infrastructure is not being maintained, and the city is in decline during the good times, what will happen when a recession hits? ------ in response to Gregbx's comment: Ce n'est pas vrai pour les impôts des companies. Agreed, quebec has low corporate tax, but the red tape and brain drain to other provinces with lower personal taxes affects them just as much. ---- in repsonse to monctezuma's comment about capital tax: i have to agree with gregbx that the corporate tax is not the issue, nor is capital gains, IMHO the article states that bloated beurocracy and unions is the issue. we have too many goverment workers doing inefficient tasks. we need to remove red tape and streamline business processes. ---- i would also like to point out that although i do agree with the article, the Fraser Institue does have a reputation as a conservative think-tank, emphasis on the conservative. that being said, they are completly right.

The saddest thing about this, is it makes this board so much less interesting. 2 cranes downtown and a possible metro extension of 1 station on the blue line in the next 20 years. YAWN. With this economy montreal can barely hope to maintain the infrastructure it has, never mind build something new. I check this board because I love this city and continually hope to see something more than a vague proposal be submitted, but seriously, when I look at what is going on in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, it makes me want to cry that montreal is barely registering a pulse. At the current rate, I don't think the city is even sustainable as is. Does noone else see a looming crisis?

Everyone says alberta is rich because of oil, but really, it is low taxes and low beuraucracy. It is a model that BC followed, and look! growth and prosperity. Now pretty much every province is following suit. N.B. just delcared that they no longer want to be dependant on transfer payments from the rest of canada, they want to be an equal partner, so they are lowering corporate tax from 15% to 5%. Quebec's taxes are by far the highest in canada, and not coming down at all. And beuraucracy, look at the paper forms for quebec personal income tax!!!! 3 pages just for assurance medicament! who dreams up this crap?? Every other provincial tax is one page that you slip in to your federal tax form. Alberta has a 10% tax. you make $100, you pay $10. you make $100,000 you pay $10,000. How much money do they save by 1) not having the infrastructure to support such a complicated system as quebec and investigate fraud. and 2) allowing people to stop filling out forms and just get more important things done. Quebec is on a fast track to becoming the only "have-not" province. rather than criticize the rest of canada, quebec should enter into some healthy competition.

IMHO, there are 3 things that drive airport business: 1) Business travel 2) Large percentage of the population born elsewhere. 3) Tourism Transportation hub flights where people switch flights and do not spend anytime in the city don't count for much economic spin-off, so I won't talk about them. Mirabel was built when Montreal was still the business and cultural capital of Canada. Since then, 1) the business has moved to Toronto 2) Vancouver and Toronto have about 40% - 50% of the population born outside of canada and rising, Montreal is hovering between 10% and 20%. 3) Tourism in Montreal is still strong, but has een hurt by the negative image resulting from the political climate. Most tourists are english. The passenger flights moved accordingly: (stats from wikipedia) * montreal 12,407,934 * toronto 31,507,349 * vancouver 17,495,049 * calgary + edmonton combined 18,305,903 Keep in mind that vancouver calgary and edmonton combined have a population roughly equal to montreal. And as for the light rail extension to the airport, the airport needs to be making money in order to justify the extention. Toronto's light rail to the aiport called "blue22" is almost ready to start construction, and Vancouver's airport makes so much money it was able to contribute over $400 million dollars to get the metro extended from downtown right into the terminal. This 2 billion dollar project will be completed by November 2009. If montreal was more attractive to business and to immigrants, Mirabel would totally make sense. Mirabel is not a problem, it is a symptom of a problem.