A
Green Economics Proposal
A discussion
paper
The
NDP (New Democratic Party) and other "left" parties
have long ago been tarred with the idea that all they stand for
is big government controlling everything and putting the socialist
bureaucrat / politician's nose into everyone's affairs and everyone's
business. The spectre of huge government depriving the citizen
of freedom has been the big boogeyman used against all leftist
parties. Perhaps this has been done with some level of justification,
and even when not justified, it has been the thing in public
conception that has been a millstone around leftist movements.
The
NGA has not got that image, and since we are against that very same
centralized domination of people's lives and stand for true democracy
and citizen power, how would an NGA government restore decision-making
and control to smaller community bodies?
The
NGA (New Green Alliance) principles declare in favour of decision
making at the lowest / smallest appropriate level. We also advocate
the democratization of our society to give meaningful input to decisions
back to the citizen.
If
we listen to provinces and municipalities and health boards, etc,
we hear the same tune; that all have local service responsibility
with little or no local money raising capacity, and so no real power
to carry out their mandates.
Currently
we fund local services in various ways, but locally raised taxes
are not up to the task so we collect taxes provincially and redistribute
them to local authorities such as health districts, school boards,
municipalities, and other groups. the "Provincial " money
comes from income taxes, corporate taxes, and PST and other fees
and license fees. Frequently this means that it is also a provincial
department or bureaucrat that determines the local need and then
doles out the money or even administers it directly. With that kind
of central control of collecting and spending public money, the local
community has very little control of how it collects or spends monies
or how it fits local priorities.
We
should be taking a percentage of the PST and gasoline tax (and others)
generated within local jurisdictions and returning it to those jurisdictions
as revenue so they can fund local decisions. Thus, along with the
new revenue source would go new local decision-making and local service
responsibilities.
Centralized
collection, planning, allocation and provision of services to a local
level is not all bad. To have equity of service and even efficiency,
central roles are desirable and essential... but not always and not
in as many things as is currently the case. What is bad about this
centralization is that local communities lose any sense of being
in control of their own futures, and lack the power to make local
decisions about that future. With the loss of any sense of control
also goes a sense of responsibility for local improvement. What also
happens is a resentment and "blame the big guy" response
for things that are wrong.
If
municipal amalgamation were encouraged to follow logical community
regions, we would have a more rational system of local government
organization. If an urban commercial centre also had responsibility
for providing services to its rural support base, there would be
much greater incentive for citizens thinking about each other as
partners and members of the same civil society.
We
want to see rural revitalization, and support for the family farm.
That needs local communities with local economies. Just as the NGA
supports a revised system that recycles locally generated wealth
back to the local community on a provincial and national level, we
also should be encouraging that to be happening on a smaller scale
within the province and within regions. For example, if the local
community got a percentage of the gasoline tax back as direct rebates
to the municipality for road maintenance and repair, there would
also be an incentive for local residents and municipalities to support
the local town gas station instead of filling up in the city for
one cent per litre less. Gasoline taxes are generated from driving
on off-highway roads too!
If
this were part of a “Quality Saskatchewan Program” ,
communities, that have gotten on board the Quality Saskatchewan Program
to make theirs more effective communities, could receive incentives
by getting an extra percentage rebate on the PST.
The
idea of using the PST rather than income or property tax for this "return
of revenue plan", is that it is a commerce-based taxation revenue,
and something that people determine to some degree by deciding where
they spend money. We advocate community-based economics, this could
be one way of encouraging it to happen. If local communities have
access to a portion of funds they generate themselves, there is an
incentive to try to generate more funds locally. This is where citizens
and community organizations would be encouraged to build a local
economy instead of supporting the further centralization of commerce
and services that is destroying rural life in Saskatchewan
The
redirection of a greater percentage of PST to local control and decision-making,
gives the community the tools to realize their own goals. For example,
if one of the goals of the community under a Quality Saskatchewan
plan was to upgrade water and sewer infrastructure and to upgrade
the recreation resources for the community's young and older citizens,
the allocation of an additional percentage of PST generated in that
area to carry out those plans would make sense. That way, they would
not have to wait for a Regina bureaucrat or a provincial budget to
determine when and if they would get money for these projects and
how they would be done. Instead of waiting for the central authority
to decide things for them, they could make their own economically
feasible plans. If they needed more money, they could generate more
by having a greater generation of PST within their community (a greater
level of local commerce). Citizens would see that shopping for their
groceries or clothing or hardware in the local town rather than in
the city would help them build their senior's centre or to upgrade
the skating rink or to get safe drinking water faster. Right now
the only options local groups have to fund local decisions for local
services is to do volunteer fund raising and HOPE for some central
government matching grants. Again, that removes the decisions from
the local community and makes it "political"... who is
your MLA or how can a government buy the next election, etc.
I
will add a short story that illustrates my point of retuning control
to the local community.
Back
in my days of living in the west end of Prince Albert and my role
as a Community School principal and one of the people helping the
West Flat Citizens' Group to get off the ground, I attended a provincial
conference for deputy ministers and regional directors and supervisors
of the Health, Social Services and Education departments. They had
been called together to get the "word' about the government's
plan to create the "child-first" "integrated services'
model for Saskatchewan. That was a long time ago, and there has been
a great deal of talk and so little real action since then.
Anyway,
at the end of the session someone ( whose name I don't recall) got
up and announced to those civil servants: "When you get back
to your departments and to your communities, your role is to assist
the local community to bring about improvements. It is not your role
to determine for them what those improvements are to be. If you ask
your community what they think would make it a better place for them
to live, and they tell you that they think it would be good to get
dog shit off the sidewalks, it is NOT you job to tell them that there
are better and more important things for them to be doing. Your job
is to ask them how they think you can help them get the dog shit
off the sidewalk. When that goal has been realized, the community
will come up with a new idea of what to do next, and again, your
job is to help them realize that goal. That way they will develop
the kind of community they want to be and they will also develop
strategies to keep the dog shit off the sidewalk and to do other
things that will really make it a better community."
I appreciated that speech, and then over the years that followed found
that the people who were charged to carry the message out in action,
ignored those wise directive and just kept on having discussions
and turf protecting strategy sessions.
The
speech that was so thoroughly ignored is the kind of philosophy,
which if followed by a central government, will help our communities
to grow, and which will have NGA principles come about in public
policy.
Inviting
comment and feedback,
Gerald
Regnitter