Property Tax Hikes...Again

The New Brunswick Flag

The golden lion is a British Coat of Arms holdover, while the ship signifies NB's shipbuilding and seafaring heritage.

As anyone who feels a sense of fondness and concern for where they live, this is why I am very concerned for what is happening here in New Brunswick.

New Brunswick is similiar to the state of Maine in character in that we have traditionally had a lower income per/capita than in other parts of Canada or the U.S. I am aware that California has already raised its states taxes, but this is not California! The average income in New Brunswick is an already low $37,500. As a direct result of this, housing prices have remained relatively cheap here in comparison. This has been traditionally true of the Maritime provinces as a whole, and has given rise to a typical Maritime expression, as well as elsewhere I'm sure, of 'living close to the bone'.

And, similar to Maine, we have been losing our population over the years, as families shrink in size due to: the higher cost of living; the overall pay scale compared with other places which take people away; and we don't as yet have enough immigrants of any particular nationality living here to attract others from their homelands to create their cultural centers as they already have done in larger cosmopolitan areas to make up for the difference. Top it all off, our New Brunswick age demographic is ever increasing, as the younger people keep leaving for greener pastures.

And of course New Brunswick also suffers from a contemporary moral issue that many other jurisdictions are forced to put up with: while most politicians, and some CEO's of public utilities are overly compensated, (10 times the average income plus a bonus of nearly 3 times again) the rest of the everyday, middle class citizenry are more or less told to eat cake.

In some towns such as Quispamsis (Quis/ pam/ sis) which is not far from where I am, they've seen a property tax jump of 17.3%!
You can only imagine what the older folks are thinking while they look at their decimated investment portfolios they'd been previously relying on to retire with!

The following is a Letter to the Editor I sent today to The Saint John newspaper; 'The Telegraph Journal', after this year's property tax increases were sent out. There is a 250 word limit to these letters.

Here it is:

'Warning! There is a wide spread system failure in the making in New Brunswick! Property tax assessments have just been released, and very similar to last year's assessment hikes, this year's assessments have increased by an average of 7.4%!Does the average citizen's wage go up this much on an annual basis? The simple answer is: Of course not!

Then why does the current Graham administration in Fredericton not see the pure folly of this ill conceived policy of squeezing additional funds out of an already beleaguered citizenry in this era of economic uncertainty?

And why does the Graham government bother to put on a public charade of attempting to repatriate New Brunswickers who have already left, in order to buoy our sagging population? Why bother? What could you possibly say to them that would make any financial sense? C'mon back, maybe you'll find a decent paying job, and maybe you won't. Our wages are traditionally lower than in other parts of the country, and to top it off, we just raised the cost of living...again. But hey, c'mon back, we miss you? You can just imagine what these people will be thinking. Thanks, but no thanks.

The reasons for poor public policies are usually attributable to the lack of moral character of their administrators. Is our current premier just another politician looking to pay for status quo government expenses any way he can? And, is the visionary stuff of much greater, benevolent statesmen simply beyond his abilities?

A footnote here...Graham was not re-elected as the  premier of New Brunswick, but this was due mainly to his nonsensical approach of attempting to shove the people of New Brunswick around in other ways...