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Municipalities Newfoundland and Labrador
May 10, 2019
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2019 Provincial Election Key Messages


We are entering the crucial, final week of the provincial election. At our MNL Symposium in Gander we announced our four strategic issues for the municipal sector:

  1. Alternative municipal revenue to ease our reliance on property tax;
  2. A regional approach that is built with the sector, not for us;
  3. A joint federal-provincial-municipal plan for municipal infrastructure; and,
  4. A seat at the table when decisions about us are being made by the provincial and federal governments. 
We had our first chance to see how the four party leaders reacted to our concerns at the Provincial Election Forum we hosted at the MNL Symposium. The members attending, and the 3,000 people who watched via Facebook Live, got a good sense of where the parties stand on our key issues. Now it’s time to bring the message to the candidates in your districts.
 

The enclosed election support package includes:

  • A backgrounder on our key issues with suggested questions for candidates. We recommend you reach out to candidates over social media, via letter, or at the door with the questions that work best for your situation. Feel free to use examples from your own municipality that can help make the point (concerns with your aging infrastructure, cost of wastewater treatment, potential fines and punishment for not complying with wastewater regulations, chronic boil water advisories, services that you had to eliminate or scale back due to lack of revenue, etc…)
  • A copy of the news release from MNL outlining our key issues. You can adapt this news release for your own use.
  • A table indicating the revenue potential from income and sales tax for each municipality in the province. We are asking that each municipality calculate the percentage increase in property tax mil rate that would be required to raise that much money. For example, the Town of Torbay would have to raise its mil rate 56% to generate the same revenue as the 1% income and sales tax transfer would provide. 
  • Some suggested social media key messages for you to use.
Click here to download our Key Messages
Click here to download our News Release
Click here to download the Revenue Potential Table
Click here to download our Social Media Toolkit
 
If you are engaging the news media or using social media, please let our office know so we can do whatever is possible to amplify your message.
 

Our overall messages are:

  • As the economy changes, municipalities don’t have the revenue tools to take us into the future.
  • A transfer of about 2% of the provincial budget would raise municipal budgets by about 36%, that’s a good investment.
  • We need a plan to deal with our aging, crumbling infrastructure and the overwhelming cost of the new infrastructure associated with federal wastewater treatment regulations.
  • We want a seat at the table when the federal and provincial governments are making decisions about what we can and cannot do or how we can or cannot spending taxpayers’ money on critical municipal infrastructure.

 
As I said at the MNL Symposium, we are at the beginning of a conversation with both the federal and provincial governments on these issues. It will take patience and persistence, but we know we can accomplish great things when we speak together. There is $25 Million dollars of annual funding in the municipal sector today that was not there in 2014 because we spoke as one and we did not let up. 
 
The stakes are even higher now, so let’s start pushing.


Mayor Tony Keats
President of Municipalities Newfoundland and Labrador


Copyright © 2019, Municipalities Newfoundland and Labrador, All rights reserved.
Memo to Members: 2019 Provincial Election Key Messages

Our mailing address is:
460 Torbay Road, St. John's, NL  A1A 5J3

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