'We don’t have piles of money sitting around': Newmarket mayor welcomes provincial auditor to review town's books

Province says audits of six municipalities will lead to building of much-needed houses

Yorkregion.com
Aug. 8, 2023
Lisa Queen

At first, Newmarket Mayor John Taylor was surprised when the provincial government abruptly announced in May that it would appoint an auditor to review the town’s finances as part of a Queen’s Park campaign to build 1.5 million homes in Ontario.

Now that the province has tasked Ernst & Young to audit the town, Taylor said he welcomes the chance to show that the municipality’s finances are in order.

“If we’re going to embark on this process, I’m glad it’s moving forward now. Ernst & Young is certainly a very credible, reputable firm and I know they’ll do a thorough and balanced audit,” he said.

“No organization, including the province, is perfect. But they’re going to see that we’re well-run and relatively lean and that we don’t have a lot of money squirreled away. In fact, just the opposite. Everybody knows there’s a municipal infrastructure deficit across the country. Newmarket is no different. We don’t have piles of money sitting around. We’ve barely got enough to manage the challenges that each year and each decade create for us.”

The provincial government has cut some development charges (DCs), the fees municipalities charge developers on new construction to provide needed infrastructure like roads and sewers, although Taylor remains confident that the province will compensate municipalities for the lost funds some other way.

While Taylor has been a proponent of more and varied housing to accommodate growth, including for newcomers to Canada, he and council didn’t sign a provincial pledge to accommodate 12,000 new homes by 2031.

Newmarket doesn’t have the capacity for that housing because successive provincial governments dragged their feet on making a decision on sewage allocation to Newmarket, Aurora and East Gwillimbury, Taylor argued.

Sewage allocation dictates growth because houses can’t be built unless residents can flush their toilets, have baths and showers, do their laundry and wash their dishes.

After the town didn’t sign the pledge, the province announced that it would appoint the auditor and then said it wouldn’t give strong mayor powers to Taylor, who said he didn’t want them anyway because he prefers to lead through consensus.

The province has also appointed Ernst & Young to audit Toronto, Peel Region, Mississauga, Caledon and Brampton.

The province says the audits will help provide an understanding of the impact of cutting development charges, a move it says will boost the building of much-needed housing.

Ontario is eliminating DCs on affordable housing and has also eliminated them on non-profit housing. Development charges for family-friendly purpose-built rentals were reduced by up to 25 per cent. Development charges can continue to be levied on most market housing, the province said in a statement.

“This next step in the audit process is a critical part of our work to rein in the soaring cost of housing across Ontario, particularly when it comes to affordable, non-profit and family-friendly purpose-built rental housing,” Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Steve Clark said.

The Housing Affordability Task Force found that some municipalities have hiked DCs by as much as 900 per cent in less than 20 years, a significant reason for ballooning housing costs.