Public Opinion Research

X.     Attitudes Towards Local Government and Funding for Local Priorities

B. Funding Options

While there is a broad consensus that local governments need other revenue-generating methods to fulfill their responsibilities, it is clear that the public sees transferring the gas tax to local government as their preferred option by a significant margin. Some 81% of Canadians say that this method is their preferred option, whereas only 16% do not like this idea.

Other potential options that garner broad public support are increasing development charges (64%) and local government-private sector partnerships (59%).

However the public is much more divided over increasing business property taxes (47%) and using debt instruments such as issuing bonds or financial borrowing (46%). Imposing tolls on roads and bridges (41%) and charging user fees (36%) are less acceptable options. Increasing residential property taxes (15%) is clearly the least acceptable method.

Figure 50

Regional Differences

There are very few regional differences with respect to preferences for types of new methods for generating additional revenue for local governments.

One of the more notable trends is in Quebec. While they still express a strong desire for a gas tax transfer, Quebecers are just modestly less likely to prefer this method compared to the residents in the rest of Canada.

In addition, British Columbians are just slightly more likely to prefer highway/bridge tolls and user fees on actual usage of water, garbage and public transit.

Differences by Community Size

As shown in Figure 51, there are also minimal differences in community size with respect to preferences for different methods of generating additional revenues. Consistent with their concerns about the health of businesses in their community, residents of communities with populations of less than 50,000 are less keen on the options of increasing development charges and business property taxes.

Figure 51

Level of Support for Different Options for Providing Local Governments With Access to More Funding

% Strongly/Somewhat Support
				National Total (n=4200) %	Region					Community Size
					Ontario (n=1444) %	Quebec (n=851) %	Atlantic (n=400) %	Prairies (n=833) %	BC/North (n=672) %	< 50K (n=800) %	50K - 100K (n=800) %	100K - 500K (n=800) %	500K - 1M (n=800) %	1M+ (n=1000) %
Transferring a portion of the gas tax to local governments				81	83	72	84	83	86	79	81	84	80	80
Increasing development charges				64	65	63	61	64	64	58	62	64	64	65
Partnering between local governments and the private sector				59	58	60	57	60	59	55	59	59	59	59
Increasing property taxes for businesses				47	48	45	48	44	46	37	45	49	45	48
Issuing bonds or borrowing more of the money required to finance projects				46	47	45	46	45	49	45	44	47	43	47
Introducing more road, highway and bridge tolls				41	39	41	41	41	46	38	35	40	42	42
Charging people more of the actual cost of programs and services for water, garbage collection and public transit				36	36	35	28	33	41	35	35	33	33	38
Increasing property taxes for residents				15	17	13	12	15	19	13	17	15	14	17

Demographic Differences

While there are only modest regional and community size differences on preferences for different methods for raising new revenue for local governments, there are significant variances on education and household income.

For the most part, better-educated Canadians are more likely to prefer these proposed revenue-generating methods than those who have less education. For example, better-educated Canadians are definitely more likely to prefer transferring the gas tax, increasing development charges, and charging users fees to cover the actual costs of programs and services. At the other end, those with a high school education or less tend to be systematically less likely to prefer any of these methods of raising additional revenue.

A similar pattern is evident on household incomes. Across the board, those Canadians with household incomes greater than $100,000 are more likely to prefer most of the proposed ways for garnering additional revenue for local governments. There were only two exceptions where this higher income segment was no different than the lower income segments - raising property taxes on business and issuing bonds or borrowing more.

Again, those with incomes less than $50,000 are generally less likely than those with a higher household income to prefer any of these means for garnering additional revenue.

There are some differences between men and women. Women are modestly less likely than men to prefer private sector-local government partnership, a gas tax transfer, and user fees to pay for the actual costs of the programs. In addition, women are slightly more likely than men to think that raising business property taxes would be appropriate.

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