LETTER

A missive from Councillor Lacasse

 

Last year, we received a newsletter from our councillor, Josée Lacasse. Cheekily, she lists various road repairs as "her achievements". Sure!  She's been out with a bucket and a shovel, digging up the street and laying asphalt. The fact is these are run-of-the-mill projects that the city will do whether she is there or not. Does she believe we voted her in to keep a seat in the council chamber warm for four years?

More disturbingly, her newsletter did not contain the word "tax" once. Across the city, householders are being blitzed by crippling taxes so people like Josée Lacasse can warm a seat, financing their latest pet project.

One example. In 1996, I bought my first home-based business licence; it was $65. According to the Bank of Canada, that is $91.67 in today's money, yet this year's fee is a whopping $200, more than twice inflation. Have city services to home-based businesses really improved three-fold since 1996? Or is the money going into ever higher salaries for councillors? I tried asking 311, Gatineau’s Call Centre, how much councillors like Josée Lacasse are paid. They would only say that it was in excess of $58,000 a year, plus expenses – for more detail, I have to issue a formal "Freedom of Information" notice that must be delivered by a bailiff before they will release the exact (salary) figure. Such is the embarrassing shame of the regime of Mayor Maxime Pedneaud-Jobin.

In England, city councillors are paid zero – nothing at all. For expenses, all they can claim is a bus fare, and if they go by car, that is forfeited. Furthermore, no one makes a candidates' list, let alone gets elected, unless their home telephone number and address is publicly listed. And if (the result is) some citizen goes round and punches out the councillor, that's considered to be part of the job. I knew one councillor in Westminster who regularly fielded calls of a personal nature from constituents.

Why would anyone wish to be a councillor in England? Simple, all the main parties, from Communist to Conservative, from Liberal to Scottish Nationalists, regard being a city councillor as an internship for a larger career serving the public. It is pretty much impossible to become a party’s candidate to be an MP in parliament unless you've served at least one term as a city councillor.

But not in Canada. Instead, our city doles out $58,000 a year, plus, for a crappy newsletter from a woman who expects a pat on the back because the sun rose this morning. Concepts like keeping costs and taxes low and serving the public are as alien as are visits to the planet Venus. Were you people all born yesterday?

So, just how many more years is it before we can kick these people out of office?

Robert L Thompsett, Vieux Aylmer