Re: Province’s property tax stance called ‘laughable’, Feb. 22
As a resident of Ottawa Centre, I am also concerned about my property taxes and I understand the property assessment system can be daunting and difficult to understand.
As your member of Provincial Parliament, I will work to ensure that my constituents understand their assessment notices and their appeal options when they receive their reassessments this fall.
As your representative at Queen’s Park, I will continue to fight to make sure that the property assessment system is open, fair and transparent.
As I explained to your reporter, Kenyon Wallace, two weeks ago, even if your reassessment reflects a property value increase, this does not necessarily mean an increase in your property taxes.
The City of Ottawa sets its own property tax rates and has the jurisdiction to adjust their rates to offset the impact of reassessments. Municipalities are also required to offer relief from reassessment-related tax increases on residential properties owned by low-income seniors, and they have the option of providing tax relief to residential and farm property owners in situations of hardship.
The question that residents should ask: “What is my property tax rate, and why is it at that rate”?
Since 2003, the McGuinty government has invested billions of dollars in Ottawa by uploading costs in ambulance, public health and social services.
We have also supported public transit through the gas tax, are back in the business of social housing, and provided funding for 106 additional police on the streets here in Ottawa.
If you take a look at what this all means to the City of Ottawa annually, in new money alone it is $89 million, and that doesn’t include things like the $200 million for a new public transit project and other one time money like investing in university infrastructure or expanding hospitals.
I understand the complexity of this issue, and I look forward to working with my colleagues at city hall to make sure that the residents of Ottawa are receiving the services they need at a tax rate that they can afford.
Yasir Naqvi, MPP,
Ottawa Centre