des idées pour la gourmande ville de Montréal

[mtlurb]

Municipalités

Diminuer ses taxes à crédit

 

Les résidents de Vaughan, en banlieue de Toronto, pourront diminuer leur compte de taxes foncières en utilisant la première carte de crédit municipale en Amérique du Nord.

 

Georgio Gianniotti, le promoteur à l'origine du projet, destine la nouvelle carte aux familles de la classe moyenne qui préfèrent alléger leur fardeau fiscal plutôt que d'accumuler des points qui s'échangent contre des voyages.

 

Comment ça marche?

 

La carte de Vaughan est une carte de crédit sans frais, émise par une banque. Le programme de fidélisation leur permet d'accumuler de l'argent lorsqu'ils utilisent leur carte.

 

Les résidents qui utilisent leur carte dans des commerces locaux bénéficieront également de rabais.

 

À la fin de chaque année, le résident diminuer son compte de taxes foncières avec la somme accumulée.

 

La banque verse directement la somme à la Ville. Vaughan ne tire aucun avantage financier de l'initiative.

 

Le concepteur de la carte est payé par la banque pour chaque demande de carte reçue par la banque.

 

 

Les résidents de Vaughan devront cependant dépenser beaucoup pour bénéficier de rabais intéressants. Par exemple, pour 10 000 $ dépensés, le propriétaire d'une carte obtiendra un paiement de 75 $ sur son compte. La somme paraît modeste dans une ville où le compte de taxes foncières moyen est de 4000$ par année.

 

La Ville d'Oshawa a annoncé qu'elle lancera une telle carte en janvier 2008.

[mtlurb]

Les policiers de Montréal incités à donner plus de contraventions

Le 19 septembre 2007 - 18:16 | Olivier Caron [AgenceNews]

 

Selon ce que rapporte le réseau TVA ce mercredi, les policiers de la ville de Montréal ont reçu le mandat de donner plus de contraventions. Rappelons que le budget du SPVM devrait être amputé de 20 millions de dollars l'an prochain.

 

En entrevue à TVA, Yves Francoeur, le président de la fraternité des policiers et policières de la ville de Montréal, estime que les agents ne doivent pas jouer le rôle de percepteurs de taxes déguisés et que ses membres n'accepteront pas cela.

 

Pour la direction du SPVM, donner plus de contraventions vise plutôt à renforcer la sécurité routière, toujours selon ce que rapporte TVA.

[mtlurb]

La police de Montréal serre la vis aux propriétaires de véhicules bruyants

Le 24 septembre 2007 - 10:16 | Colette Cyr [AgenceNews]

 

La police de Montréal serre la vis aux propriétaires de véhicules bruyants

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

Il semble que depuis le début de l'année, les policiers auraient distribué deux fois plus de billets d'infraction pour nuisance sonore qu'il y a deux ans. C'est que de nombreux citoyens se sont plaints de trop grands bruits émis par des voitures en mauvais état.

 

C'est pourquoi les automobilistes n'auront qu'à bien se tenir car la police de Montréal serrera la vis aux propriétaires de véhicules bruyants. Au cours des huit premiers mois de 2007, plus de 2000 contraventions ont été imposées aux automobilistes pris en défaut, comparativement à 947 en 2005: une hausse de 118%.

 

Par ailleurs, le «Regroupement québécois contre le bruit» argue que ses membres souhaiteraient qu'on émette 100 fois plus de constats d'infraction si l'on compte régler le problème de façon plus significative.

[mtlurb]

Montreal and suburb mayors agree on new tax

 

Mon, 2008-01-07 04:25.

Catherine Sherriffs

 

The city of Montreal and the island suburbs are finally agreeing on something: a new municipal sales tax.

 

Just as consumers have started to enjoy the one percent GST cut, the mayors of Montreal and the 15 demerged suburbs want to replace it with a tax of their own.

 

Before they broke for the holidays, the mayors voted all in favor on a motion that would allow them to start collectiong a one percent sales tax from anyone who shops on the island.

 

The motion calls on the provincial government to allow Montreal and other Quebec municipalities to take over the tax revenue being given up by Ottawa.

 

http://www.cjad.com/news/565/645574

[Habsfan]

the mayors voted all in favor on a motion that would allow them to start collectiong a one percent sales tax from anyone who shops on the island.

 

Sucks for montrealers, but It won't affect me that much. I almost never shop in Montreal.

[mtlurb]

Le maire court vraiment à la perte de la rue ste-catherine... ça va devenir un espèce de champs élysée ou seulement des touristes magasinent.

[mcgill]

A 1% sales tax won't really change much for Montrealers and day to day shopping. Personally, when I'm mentally calculating how much something will cost with tax, I still go with 15%. For a $100 grocery bill, an extra $1 of tax will not have people driving to Laval or Longueuil for food. Perhaps off-island car dealerships or wholesalers will experience a small increase in business.

[mtlurb]

Not by itself, but if you add in the hungry parkmeters, the hungry parking attendants, the soon to be bridge tolls, the fake 40kmh/50kmh speed limits and the non availibility of parking... all this will hurt commerce on the island.

[mtlurb]

Sales tax for cities? Quebec says no

Better to increase consumer spending, ministers argue

LINDA GYULAI and KEVIN DOUGHERTYThe Gazette

 

Tuesday, January 08, 2008

 

 

No sale.

That was the response of the Quebec government and critics yesterday to a request by Montreal Island mayors to take the tax revenue the federal government has given up by lowering its goods-and-services tax.

In Quebec City, spokespeople for Municipal Affairs Minister Nathalie Normandeau and

Finance Minister Monique

Jérôme-Forget said the money consumers save with the GST's dropping to five per cent from six per as of Jan. 1 should stay in their pockets.

"The common denominator is to increase consumer spending power," said Jonathan Trudeau, an aide to Normandeau. "We don't want to cancel that impact."

At an island council meeting in late December, mayors of Montreal Island municipalities voted unanimously for a motion tabled by Montreal Mayor Gérald Tremblay that asks the Quebec government to allow Montreal and other municipalities to take over the one percentage point of sales tax being given up by Ottawa.

Tremblay says Quebec could do so in one of two ways: create a municipal sales tax or raise the provincial sales tax by one percentage point and send the additional revenue to municipalities.

The Parti Québécois opposition in Quebec City urged the provincial government yesterday to add the one percentage point to Quebec's 7.5 per cent sales tax.

The Liberals rejected the idea.

"We maintain our position," said Caroline Charest, an aide to Jérôme-Forget. "We will leave it in the consumers' pockets."

Before Montreal or other municipalities sire a new sales tax to raise more revenue, they ought to try to reduce their spending, critics of the municipal sales tax idea said.

"It's easy to dig into taxpayers' pockets," said Mathieu Laberge, an economist with the Montreal Economic Institute.

The think tank says Montreal should compare its service delivery with that of other cities in North America and identify more efficient practices before it looks to pad its revenues.

The think tank also favours a move that would raise the hackles of critics of privatization. It suggests cities try competitive tendering: contracting out municipal services but allowing a municipality's civil service to compete for contracts, along with private-sector firms.

This has been tried in England. The public sector won 70 per cent of the contracts, and at a cost that was six to 10 per cent lower, Laberge said. Philadelphia, comparable in size to Montreal, saved $38 million a year with such tendering, Laberge added.

Pierre J. Hamel, an expert on municipal financing at the Université du Québec's Institut national de la recherche scientifique, agrees cities can save money - but in the opposite way from the think tank's proposal.

More outsourcing would bring higher costs, he argued, because short contracts become more costly at each renewal. Moreover, bidders would try to cut corners to win, he warned.

Breaking up public services into a series of contracts could make the sum of the parts more costly than keeping the services together, Hamel added.

"The same group of municipal blue-collar workers cuts the grass, patches roads and collects the garbage. If you break up the work into different contracts, you'll not save money in the long term."

lgyulai@thegazette.canwest.com

kdougherty@thegazette.canwest.com

 

http://www.canada.com/components/print.aspx?id=85f3b335-dd13-487c-a664-99a9ad40f65d&k=30912

[mtlurb]

Montreal is a landfill bully

 

 

The Gazette

 

Published: 22 hours ago

A new, greener day may be dawning somewhere, but here in Montreal we are still so bogged down in territorial battles that it could be a while before a perfectly sensible recycling program gets under way.

 

At issue is the $10 a tonne the Quebec government has been collecting from municipalities and businesses since June 2006 as a fee for what gets buried in landfill sites.

 

Similar "pay as you throw" programs are in place in Vancouver, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Seattle, but Quebec has gone a step further by dedicating the funds raised to recycling. Eighty-five per cent of the money the province collects - about $60 million a year - is to be given back to municipalities to help finance their recycling programs.

 

 

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However, Montreal has decided that it will keep all the money destined for Montreal Island, saying it needs every cent to finance its own "residual materials" management plan.

 

What this really amounts to is Montreal bullying its smaller neighbours on the grounds that it can get away with doing so.

 

This is not reasonable, and Quebec needs to tell the city so. The suburbs need - and are entitled to - money for their own programs.

 

As Westmount mayor Karin Marks told La Presse, her city and others, "are duly constituted cities, so why would the law be applied any differently to us?"

It shouldn't be. Montreal has no business taking other cities' money.

 

 

 

© The Gazette (Montreal) 2008

 

 

http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/editorial/story.html?id=305155c3-ab91-4c3f-b65f-fc0023e39350