{"id":35775,"date":"2025-01-30T17:36:09","date_gmt":"2025-01-30T22:36:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=35775"},"modified":"2025-01-30T17:36:13","modified_gmt":"2025-01-30T22:36:13","slug":"municipalities-need-a-new-deal-with-province-says-crombie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/municipalities-need-a-new-deal-with-province-says-crombie\/","title":{"rendered":"Municipalities need a \u201cNew Deal\u201d with Province says Crombie"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Municipalities need a \u201cNew Deal\u201d with the Province on funding and housing, according to Ontario Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At a pre-campaign stop at the Aurora Seniors\u2019 Centre on January 23, accompanied by Newmarket-Aurora Ontario Liberal candidate Chris Ballard, Crombie said a re-think is needed on municipal funding while billing herself as a \u201cdifferent kind\u201d of Liberal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBeing a former mayor, I know acutely well that municipalities rely on development charges as a critical source of revenue, so municipalities do require a New Deal on funding \u2013 long-term, sustainable funding,\u201d said Crombie, just hours before Progressive Conservative Premier Doug Ford made it clear he would ask the Lieutenant-Governor to dissolve the legislature the following week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Should voters send a Liberal Government to Queen\u2019s Park on February 27, Crombie said their plan would replace development charges (DCS) \u2013 that is, money paid by incoming developers to the municipalities to account for growth and its impact on infrastructure \u2013 with a re-tooled Ontario Building Fund.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Going forward with a re-branded Better Communities Fund would, she said, take the \u201ccost of the building\u201d off the home purchaser.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Better Communities Fund [will] repay to the municipality the DCs because they rely on that,\u201d said Crombie. \u201cThat\u2019s the short-term fix and eventually we would like to ensure that municipalities will have a New Deal.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Key in such reforms, she added, will be making sure that the impact of eliminating development charges in favour of this new approach will be felt on the price of homes rather than any extra revenues being pocketed by developers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow do we know what prevents the developer from putting it in his pocket? The price is still the price. The idea is there is enough market pressure that they will all have to do it because down the street one guy is playing by the rules and their price is cheaper, their product is moving,\u201d she said. \u201cThe idea is to get their shovels in the ground, so they need to see that savings, too.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Such a deal would make municipalities whole by the Province, with further moves including waiving land transfer tax for first-time home-buyers and not-for-profits, and \u201creally fix\u201d the Landlord Tenant Board to clear a significant backlog of cases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking to a group of seniors before sitting down with media, Crombie said a further re-think needs to take place on where homes and seniors\u2019 resources are built, suggesting working with bodies like churches and shopping malls to identify surplus land, such as lesser-used corners of parking lots, to increase housing stock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe need to start being creative when we see excess asphalt,\u201d she said. \u201cLet\u2019s combine the usage.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to addressing the specific needs of seniors at last week\u2019s roundtable, Crombie said her plan aims to attract and retain doctors and nurses in the public system, with a focus on bringing on 3,100 family doctors. She also addressed the issue of rising crime. She put forward reforms to Ontario\u2019s Bail Court system and getting tougher on repeat offenders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She also stressed that that a Liberal Government at Queen\u2019s Park will not result in a carbon tax on \u201cconsumers, on families, on farmers.\u201d Dubbing PC leader Ford on being \u201cthe father of the carbon tax\u201d in Ontario for scrapping the Cap & Trade system, and Ballard noting scrapping the system \u201cthrew away\u201d $3 billion Ontario revenue, Crombie said they would \u201cfind a way to make polluters pay \u2013 and there are options.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Calling herself a \u201cdifferent kind\u201d of Liberal, Crombie said she sees herself as a \u201ccentrist.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI had a business background before I entered politics,\u201d she said. \u201cI have worked in business and had my own company for many years. In my training as mayor, I always had to balance my budget. The revenue you raised is the revenue you spent, and you better do it for the most common good. I feel like I am passionate about issues that aren\u2019t traditional \u2018liberal\u2019 issues like bail reform and bail courts, about public safety, but then I am passionate about public healthcare and public education as well. But, I believe in tax cuts.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When asked whether she believed a winter election was necessary, she said an emphatic \u201cabsolutely not,\u201d adding the Ford government approached the election with a majority already.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis election will cost $175 million \u2013 why, so Doug Ford can hang onto his job?\u201d she said. \u201cHe says he needs a new mandate. He didn\u2019t need a new mandate to spend billions during COVID; he didn\u2019t need a new mandate to issue $3.1 billion worth of pre-election cheques. He didn\u2019t need a new mandate to give $2 billion to Therme Spa at Ontario Place; he didn\u2019t need a new mandate to build a tunnel under the 401\u2026 now suddenly he needs a new election in the dead of winter\u2026so he can hang onto his job because he sees an opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Municipalities need a \u201cNew Deal\u201d with the Province on funding and housing, according to Ontario Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie. At a pre-campaign stop at the Aurora Seniors\u2019 Centre on January 23, accompanied by Newmarket-Aurora Ontario Liberal candidate Chris Ballard, Crombie said a re-think is needed on municipal funding while billing herself as a \u201cdifferent kind\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":35776,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/2025-01-30-05.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-9j1","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-14 07:54:29","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35775"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35775\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35777,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35775\/revisions\/35777"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}