Stating A Position Is Ludicrous If You Manipulate The Facts

The author of the article states: "This is not the only place where our government’s intentions are good but its economic priorities are out of whack. We currently have no user fees on roads, for example, but we do have user fees for transit." but he/she seem to forget the taxes we pay everytime we fill up at the pumps and the annual licencing fee for the vehicle not only by the province but not by Comrade Miller, etc.

What We Should All Pay For

January 09, 2008 14:01

The city of Toronto, in announcing its new “Everybody Gets to Play” proposal for recreation centre users, claims the aim of the program is to “increase access to and participation in recreation programs by all Torontonians.” What a great goal! So how come the headlines in newspapers reporting on the issue read “City plans big fee hike”? Sadly, because it is true.

The city hopes to “improve access” to recreation centre programs by hiking fees by 20 per cent next year and by 66 per cent over the next seven years for most users, and then investing some of that money into expanding free access for poor people. We admire the aims of the beleaguered and cash-strapped Parks, Forestry and Recreation department, but their well-intentioned plan moves in precisely the wrong direction.

Let’s start by laying out a general principle: when dealing with how government programs are paid for, we have two general options: “universality” (meaning that access to the program is “free” for those who use it, so that all of its costs are paid for by the entire population through general tax revenues) and “user-pay” (meaning that access to the program costs money for those who use it, so some or all of the costs of that program are covered by the user).

When the use of a program or service benefits society at large (such as healthcare, policing or public education) and we want to encourage as many people as possible — rich, poor and in-between — to participate, we make it universal. When the existence of a program either benefits the user much more than it benefits society at large, or we want to discourage overuse of the program, we make it user-pay (such as hydro and gas utilities, and the recently introduced fees for garbage collection). User-pay systems encourage people to use the service less and to comparison-shop for competing services if they can. Universality encourages everyone to use the service as much as they want.
Community centre recreation programs, by this logic, should clearly be universal. Community centres are one of the places where neighbourhood residents come together and meet and mix and become a community. Recreation programs offer kids especially, but adults too, ways to stay healthy and to play with one another. All of these things we want to encourage — we can see no way in which some family could possibly be “overusing” a recreation centre’s services.

Special discounts for the poor are no replacement. After all, the mixture of the rich and poor in a community centre is something we want, and the rich, facing user fees, start looking at more expensive but more luxurious options such as private health clubs. And the middle class, who don’t qualify for subsidies but don’t have much extra money, just sit out. Further, it is demoralizing for a 12-year-old to have to demonstrate his family’s poverty in order to be allowed to play basketball with his less destitute friends — or for a 35-year-old to need to demonstrate her dire financial situation in order to qualify for an aerobics class.

This is not the only place where our government’s intentions are good but its economic priorities are out of whack. We currently have no user fees on roads, for example, but we do have user fees for transit.

We recognize that money’s tight and Parks and Rec is trying to be creative. But the city, in approaching recreational programs and community centres, should be looking to encourage use of community centres as much as possible, to promote health and activity, yes, but also to build neighbourhoods and engage youth and adults as members of a community. And in doing that, we should be moving step by step towards universal free access, not away from it.