By Doug Draper
Starting now, there will be a little less Mr. Nice Guy coming from the person sitting in the chairman’s seat at Niagara, Ontario’s regional council meetings.
Niagara, Ontario’s regional council chiairman Gary Burroughs.
Gary Burroughs – who had a reputation for being a nice guy as a councillor and a lord mayor of Niagara-on-the-Lake long, before he was voted by regional councilor’s to the Region’s top political job more than two years ago – made it clear this January 18, during the first meeting this year of regional council, that he will not hesitate to bang his gavel, if that’s what it takes, to a restore some semblance of decorum at council meetings that have had a habit of going off the rails over the past couple of years.
“I have heard loud and clear over the last six to eight weeks from many of you that you feel the Chair needs to be more assertive and decisive with points of order, inappropriate comments, and improper or disrespectful interjections,” said Burroughs during his opening remarks to the council this January 18. As a person, frankly, that is not my desired approach. But as Chair, that is the job I will do, in many cases with regret. But decorum needs to be maintained and respect re-established.”
“I’m not here to deliver my ‘respect’ speech again,” Burroughs went on as the council sat silently and the Cogeco TV cameras trained on. “I have done that on more than one occasion, and it’s apparent it’s not having the intended effect. … I am merely stating tat I have refocused on the legislative tools that are available, and expect that you respect the decisions of the Chair when those decisions are made.”
A short time later, Burroughs exercised one or two of those tools to call St. Catharines regional councillor Andy Petrowski back to his seat after the second time he ventured into the gallery to hold a whispering conversation with industrial lobbyists who were attending the council meeting for a vote on motions that would grant industrial developers a two-year exemption from paying development charges that – thanks to the approval of those motions by Petrowski and a majority of councillors – will now be passed on to the rest of Niagara residents through our property taxes.
After the freebee exemption from development charges for industry was passed, Petrowski quickly followed the two industrial lobbyists out of the council chambers for another whispering campaign in the lobby. The two he was so cozy with were later overheard out in the parking lot saying they were going to somehow get back at the few on the council who voted against granting them what is akin to welfare. Whether getting back means no or less donations for those few who voted against reducing development charges to zero for industries for the next two years, and more for Petrowski and others voted for this two-year gift from the rest of us remains to be seen.
We will be watching.
(Niagara At Large invites all of you who dare to share your first and last name with your comment to respond below to this post.)
Niagara At Large 
A microcosm of what is wrong with our “governance”. No leadership. Corporations divide and conquer to get their welfare, all on the backs of tax payers.
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So, who’s for amalgamation?
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So it goes. The usual suspects. Worst-kept secret in Niagara. Gosh, developers lobbying elected politicians, can you believe it?!
I await the photographers response. Good luck herding those cats, Mr. Burroughs. I’m mixing metaphors. Hope I am not confusing anyone here.
Respect to Doug for putting this out there.
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And, meanwhile Eleanor Lancaster, a former Regional councilor of good repute, who is to receive the Queen’s Silver Jubilee medal soon , has lawyer’s fees hanging over her ( and has had for many months) for exposing wrongful donations from businesses to some St. Catharines councilors who should have known better. than to accept them. Her reasoning? That accepting such donations raises expectations.
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This is why we need a regional ratepayers association. An organization designed to safeguard the interests of the taxpayer and ensure that our tax dollars are accounted for and spent according to the expectations of the taxpaying population.
Until that happens and these politicians are reigned in, this type of thing will happen over and over again.
Just sayin….
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Thanks for this article, Doug. Well done ! GOOD FOR GARY — RESPECT – the sign of a good leader !
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When I heard of the two and a third times increase in development fees for new and expanding commerce, I made myself available to listen in at the Public Works Committee.
I sat quietly and listened to the only councilor pleading the case for survival of our vital Commerce and Industry, which are suffering the onslaught of regional tax burners. Yes it was Petrowski laying it on the line for our Industry, Commerce and above all employment. It was Petrowski reminding the committee that much of our industry is on the critical list.
It’s hard to understand how we can bemoan the loss of so many of our companies, with their exponential loss of jobs, while those in a comfortable and relatively secure employment situations continually denigrate those same companies, which are in fact the lifeblood of our society. Worse, they then attack anyone who would stand up for Industry, Commerce and Employment.
Perhaps we should ask those who are made redundant by our loss of industry, if they think the shortfall of a few hundred dollars in fees is equal to hundreds of jobs producing the prosperity we seek. The message, which is becoming clear, is that our valued institutions suffer with the increasing failure of our various industries.
Note the $1.3million shortfall of our new hospital.
Our industries are under extreme pressure from all sides. They are being targeted by other governments that have learned the true value of the jobs our industries bring, while our industries are trying to survive under our government that treats them as tax fodder.
Higher Taxes and increased Fees on industry costs competitiveness and means less jobs, elevated unemployed and even more abject poverty; a costly level of misery which will destroy everything that our collective governments profess they want to achieve.
Whether good times or bad, Niagara’s Industrial, Commercial and Employment diminution can be charted over the last four decades from the inception of Niagara Regional Government to near bottom of most surveys!
No government has ever taxed itself into prosperity.
P.S. This photographer was at the committee meeting.
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To Preston Haskell – You used a lot of words to say that you think Andy Petrowski is great, and you think that lowering taxes on job creators will benefit the economy. Also your Abuse of Capitalization is Offensive.
The truth is that I have watched corporate taxes get chronically lower, and good employment opportunities get chronically snarled in this area. Voter turnout is abysmal in this area because people are either too busy trying to work two jobs to scrape by, or because politicians have lost all respect for the people. While the attitude is that the whole lot of them be damned, the actual occurrence is that they are over in that fancy building doing as they want with our tax dollars. I commend the Chairman for cracking down. It may be a small step,but a politician taking a measure to bring respectability to council is a good measure in my eyes.
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And yet we have all the money in the world to finance and build anything the Niagara Regional Police wants to its heart’s desire. Yes, sir. Aything you want sir, how high, how big, how tall?
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Developers in this Region have been getting a free ride on the backs of taxpayers for years and when I talked with the people in Halton Region I learned that the development charge for a single family home in that region is $32,000 and London $22,000 where as here the charge is in the range of $10,000. The only real industrial commercial development is in St Catharines and I can see where Petrowski was elected and who just might be financing him in the next election.? The fact that lobbyists can make statements conditional to buying politicians is a sick scenario so might I add If you want to present a case get in line and appear before Council not in alleys, hallways and behind closed doors. .
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Thanks for adding another perspective to this article. On first read it was pretty clear that Andy Petrowski was guilty of corruption and being controlled by unidentified interest groups, I didn’t know that Regional council was also in the process of doubling and tripling development costs in the Region. So maybe Andy Petrowski is a brave soul fighting against the corruption and over taxation that’s destroying our economy.
Politics is so confusing, I don’t know what to think sometimes.
A Response to Mr. Jantz’s comment from Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper – I take issue with the use of the word “corruption” to describe those on either side of the debate over whether development charges should be applied or not.
What this is about is a choice between having developers pay a fair share of the costs for the contruction of roads, waterlines and other infrastructure needed to accompodate their development or passing on those costs to the rest of us in the community – the average property taxpayer who is already paying his or her share for maintaining and operating the services in our communities.
Mr. Jantz, the money for this infrastructure has to come out of somewhere – either it comes out of the pocket of the developer or it comes out of the pockets of you and I, through further raising our property taxes or through digging into reserve funds municipalities have on hand to cover any unexpected costs that come up. The funding in those reserves also come out of our pockets and, again, they are there as a cushion in the event some unforseen event occurs that requires their use to keep services that benefit all of us running.
You seem to be under the impression that making developers pay a fairer share of the costs for new infrastructure required to accomondate their building projects is somehow akin to raising taxes and that keeping those those development charges down or eliminating them constitutes a tax cut. The fact of the matter is that this has nothing to do with tax cuts. To impose or not to impose development is all about who pays the piper – you and I and our neighbours or someone who purchases a lot in our neighbourhood and constructs a building on it. Do you believe that the person building on the lot should pay for the waterline, wastewater line and other infrastructure needed to accomodate that building or do you feel it is okay for them to go and lobby the local council to pass a motion that requres you and I and other neighbours to pay for it?
Since you admitted to being confused about the politics of this Mr. Jantz, rest assured that there is nothing confusing but this – either the builder pays for the infrastructure they need or the costs are downloaded on the rest of us, which means we are the ones who will ultimately see our property taxes go up higher than they normally would to cover the cost of our services.
As for Niagara’s regional government moving in recent years to raise development charges, that is true. However, Niagara’s regional government has historically imposed among the lowest development of any local or regional municipality in Ontario. That means that for decades, you and I and other residents in this region have been paying a disproportionate amount of the costs of infrastructure to accomodate new residential and commercial development. In Mississauga, Ontario, longtime Mayor Hazel McCallion has had a policy for many years of charing developers 100 per cent of the cost of new infrastructure needed to accomodate their building projects, and it certainly hasn’t done anything to deter residential and commercial growth in that municipality.
The argument Petrowski and a number of other councillors are making here is that if we keep development charges down or, in the case dealt with by the regional council at its Thursday, January 17 meeting where a decision was ultimately made to impose no development charges on industry for two years, is that waiving development charges or at least keeping them low will stimulate more industrial growth in the region. There have been plenty of studies done on the impact development charges on residential and commercial growth in municipalities and the results show that whether they are high or low or somewhere in the middle, development charges are way down on the list of reasons a business decides whether or not to move to a region.
Indeed, if keeping development charges down played a significant role in attracting industry, Niagara should have one of the largest industrial bases in all of Ontario rather than see our industrial base erode, even while our development charges were among the lowest.
I have often argued that the ABCs of municipal budgets, including how development charges and other government fee systems work, should be taught to us in grade school. If they were, perhaps we wouldn’t be having this discussion.
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Doug, my comment was to marvel at how different two people’s perspectives could be on one issue. Your article seemed to cast Andy Petrowski in a very negative light, while the Preston Haskell’s comments (included above) put an unexpectedly positive spin on the situation that I never anticipated while reading your article.
I appreciate,your feedback,but I think your main reason for writing this is to give a better explanation of why you wrote negatively about Andy Petrowski in your article. To that I think you’ve done a good job.
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Did somebody mention that our valued institutions suffer with the increasing failure of our various industries?
Did someone erroneously state that our new hospital has a $1.3million shortfall? Oops, Sorry about that. The actual stated shortfall is $13million.
The hospital is not alone. A preponderance of our institutions are now facing ever-increasing funding deficiencies and related cutbacks and closures and all predicated on our colossal loss of industry.
Certainly times have changed from the heady days when folks raced to Niagara for the many prized industrial jobs, which were begging for workers. Now, many of those industries are elsewhere and hiring workers elsewhere. No, not just any jobs, but highly skilled and technical jobs that our government says are in such short supply that industry is faced with importing workers from other countries!
Strange how we spend the world’s highest amount of tax dollars to educate our young citizens for diminishing Niagara jobs while we’re constantly told we must import better educated workers.
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A few points:
* health care transfer payments from the feds are being drastically reduced
* the feds are trying to “vacate jurisdiction” in health care as elsewhere
* this means wasteful P3 schemes will continue to which loot the public treasury
* importing temporary workers (who must speak mandarin in many cases) is a scheme to lower Canadian wages. It has nothing to do with a “lack of qualified workers”
* people who have money to spend on consumer goods “create” jobs. When the middle class is eroded, it negatively impacts the whole economy, and jobs are not “created”
* government should be subsidizing real job creators such as alternate energy, instead of subsidizing the world’s richest cos. i.e fossil fuel/tar sands Divert those monies to allternate energy would be a step forward
* our loss of manufacturing is about poorly negotiated trade deals and the high Canadian dollar (Dutch Disease)
* we need to be owners and act like owners, instead of bending over as far as possible for industries etc.
*continually offering corporate welfare has not worked and will not work: the government needs to learn from its many mistakes
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Sorry Karl Dockstader but it’s not that I think Andy Petrowski is great. I’m trying to make the point that he understands the ramification of losing what’s left of our Industry, Commerce and Employment. I Capitalize words to illustrate the importance I hold for things like Industry, Commerce and Employment.
However, I do appreciate the rest of your missive.
For all those who think that they will escape increased property tax by the dumping of more taxes and fees on the back of our ‘Industry’ will just love the greater increase in their property tax to support those made redundant by the loss of ‘Industry’.
Is it really necessary to list all of the industries that have left Niagara ‘until hell freezes over’?
Would it be enlightening to learn that the individuals that Councillor Petrowski was ‘whispering too’ were not ‘political lobbyists? They are actual owners of Niagara business and are actual taxpayers that Councillor Petrowski was ‘conferring’ with. These business owners and taxpayer were not there to ask for a handout or corporate welfare. They were there to raise concern over the recent spate of ‘Industrial closures’! These industrialists are simple showing concern over any impediment to local industry, while other jurisdictions are offering the lure of irresistible incentives
Is Joseph Summer intimating that Niagara is paying only one third the development charges of Halton and London? Did Karl Summers learn that London, Ontario increased its workforce exponentially predicated on the fact that London, Ontario has no ‘development charges’?
Unfortunately, raising ‘development fees on Industry, Commerce and Employment’ is simply a Machiavellian method to divert attention away from the Region’s failure to adequately husband our economy.
Those that think otherwise should ask themselves how well their preferred system of governance has been working for them.
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Doug, You should get your facts straight before your write a story. Perhaps one of the two guests in the audience could be loosely called a “lobbyist” as the lady I was speaking with before being interrupted was Ms. Christina Milan, the current chair of the Niagara Industrial association. I am presuming, by the way, that you don’t hold anything against the manufacturing job creators of Niagara for forming an “Association” to be their spokesperson or should these types of organizations be strictly limited to labour groups? The other guest, Mr. Mike Whatling, is the GM of Niagara Precision Limited, a precision CNC machine shop with over 35 years of experience in the Region. As for my whispering, I was doing so out of respect for the ongoing soapbox performances of my peers who in an overwhelming majority agreed that development charges for our local battered industrial stakeholders are regressive and voted for the 2-year moratorium. As for the subject of my “whispering”, I was merely explaining to these two fine people that staff was recommending that the relief be funded out of a (bloated) $9 MILLION plus contingency reserve this year and funded by the levy in the following year. Pity, Mr. Draper, you miswrite about the nature of Council’s visitors and worse you spend ANY time bemoaning this $100,000 per year motion considering in the same evening Council forked up to $350,000 over for Niagara Falls 2014 FCM conference and moved the ball forward on $83 MILLION worth of capital spend on questionable police facilities.
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