Canadian Political Candidates

Nadine Stoner

[Reprinted from GroundSwell, May-June 2010]

Frank de Jong is running for Toronto City Council in November. John Fisher is the federal Green Party candidate in the riding of Elgin-Middlesex-London. Erich Jacoby-Hawkins is the Green party candidate in the Barrie riding.

Frank de Jong is running for ward 18 of the Toronto City Council. Part of his City Council campaign is for Self-funding Infrastructure. We quote him as follows:

"A painless way for Toronto to fund new infrastructure is for the city to collect the rise in local

land values generated by that actual infrastructure.

"The 'Mink Mile' reconstruction (Bloor between Avenue and Church) is being financed this way, and serves as an excellent model for other city improvements. Many cities around the world fund their infrastructure this way.

"If infrastructure is beneficial and warranted, it will raise local land value by more than the cost of that infrastructure. When redevelopment or new infrastructure - like parks, transit, rec centres, schools, hospitals - make areas of town more desirable to live in or do business in, the increased land value should be collected to pay for that redevelopment or new infrastructure. This way traditional municipal taxes don't rise anywhere in the city.

"Normally the increased economic rent goes (untaxed) to the person or company that owns affected land, even though governments paid for the improvements out of the tax base. Taxpayers everywhere are unjustly expected to pay for improvements that only benefit the local land-owning minority. Self-funding infrastructure remedies this problem."