Winnipeg - Of Interest

[TimeFadesAway]

Originally Posted by esquire

Excellent column, thank you. I'm of roughly the same vintage as her, so I can relate to just about every word in that piece.

It's funny, decades of effort, probably into the billions of dollars spent, and really, not all that much has changed.

The pattern is entirely predictable. We elect a Conservative government, they gut social programs, poverty and crime worsen, and downtown Winnipeg deteriorates. Then we bring in the NDP and things gradually improve. Then we forget the damage they do and bring in another Conservative government. Rinse and repeat.

It happened in the '70s/early '80s with the Lyon government, the later '90s with the Filmon government, and has happened again. Our inability to make steady progress is simply a result of our inability to learn from our mistakes.

[wags_in_the_peg]

the biggest mistake we can make as a Province is have Wab Kinew as our premier. THe NDP need a more fiscally responsible platform. the Conservatives needs to be more socially responsible. hmmm... sounds like we need a provincial liberal party. when can we get one of those?

[thebasketballgeek]

Originally Posted by wags_in_the_peg

the biggest mistake we can make as a Province is have Wab Kinew as our premier. THe NDP need a more fiscally responsible platform. the Conservatives needs to be more socially responsible. hmmm... sounds like we need a provincial liberal party. when can we get one of those?

They had their chance in 2016 and instead provided one of the most disorganized and embarrassing campaigns I’ve ever seen in politics.

And if a “fiscally irresponsible” platform means our health care system isn’t in absolute crisis then by all means.

It’s not like the conservatives have been fiscally responsible either considering their lack of investment into renewable energy and electric cars when Manitoba should really be a global powerhouse in this sector. Our deficits haven’t been erased, interprovincial migration outflow has only gotten worse, and their disregard for the provinces most economically productive area (DT Winnipeg) leaves me quite unconvinced that being socially irresponsible is their only problem.

[1ajs]

we have been a mess since the 72 election when the north started to slide into the pesimistic mess. we lost all the mining and exploration jobs to sudbury and toronto vancover overnight when the government decided it would run exploration what a mess. caused a town that with one of the highest zverage incomes to slowly die as the investments in the region dried up leading to corrat games of dumping the mess on the gv via new companies that go broke and the missmanagement that lead to a gutted town with the highet cancer rates in NA

the disaster thats now leaf rapids...

the mess thompsons in

very big peac of the puzzle

not to mention the crprat exidous we had in the 70's from wpg and no dub played a huge role in the negitive atitude of mb across canada



as for the mb lybral party they tride to copy the cons and they were disorganized it was stupid. we need a center party mb is not as concervitive as many thing were very tead as she goes

[wags_in_the_peg]

Don't blame Cons 100% for downtown or health care. Open a newspaper or read news from almost any city in North Ameri a and you will see same stories. I've recently been in Vancouver and Toronto and both have major ER, Ambulance and downtown issues

[GreyGarden]

Sure, cities everywhere are facing issues with homelessness and addiction. I was also just recently in Toronto. Plenty of people on the streets struggling. But also, plenty of people out and about shopping and running errands. It did not feel scary or dangerous.

[GreyGarden]

Related to this conversation, here’s an article in the Globe today:

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/cana...nnipeg-future/

[esquire]

Originally Posted by GreyGarden

Sure, cities everywhere are facing issues with homelessness and addiction. I was also just recently in Toronto. Plenty of people on the streets struggling. But also, plenty of people out and about shopping and running errands. It did not feel scary or dangerous.

That's exactly it. The downtowns of all Canadian cities have likely all been hurt to some extent over the course of the pandemic so far, but out of the ones I've been to over the last year and a half, Winnipeg has been clobbered by far the hardest.

For example, we are a city of 3/4 of a million people, yet downtown retail is now dead. 60 years ago, downtown dominated the retail scene... 30 years ago it had already lost that title, but there was still the equivalent of a major Polo Park-sized mall in terms of selection downtown. Now the best shopping downtown is on amazon.com

Some may say that shopping isn't everything, but when you don't have any shoppers on the street as there are in other cities, that is a lot of life that has disappeared from the sidewalks, contributing to that scary or dangerous feeling you mentioned.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by GreyGarden

Related to this conversation, here’s an article in the Globe today:

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/cana...nnipeg-future/

That article could have been written at any point in the last 40 years...

It does make the usual points, although it is a little prone to hysterics (e.g., "Some derelict buildings would be at home in a disaster movie.").

But it does speak to the fact that more and more, downtown Winnipeg has the character of a suburban office that is only busy from 9-5, or when the Jets are playing (and even then only in a small part of the area). I don't see it as a menacing, hostile, abandoned place so much as it is simply desolate and uninviting, particularly after office hours. I cannot imagine that it leaves a good impression with visitors staying at downtown hotels.

[Biff]

Originally Posted by TimeFadesAway

The pattern is entirely predictable. We elect a Conservative government, they gut social programs, poverty and crime worsen, and downtown Winnipeg deteriorates. Then we bring in the NDP and things gradually improve....to a point where they keep spending until our deficit balloons to dangerous levels. Then we bring in another Conservative government to fix the finances....they usually go to far (Pallister) and our economy starts to nosedive under austerity measures. Rinse and repeat.

It happened in the '70s/early '80s with the Lyon government, the later '90s with the Filmon government, and has happened again. Our inability to make steady progress is simply a result of our inability to learn from our mistakes.

You missed one part about why the NDP get voted out in this cycle of parties. I added it above in Bold

[dmacc]

A cousin messaged me complaining about the municipal taxes increasing now that Gillingham will be the next Mayor. He claimed that Winnipeg taxes are much higher relative to other jurisdictions. I felt certain he was wrong and attempted to find information last night to prove it. I could not come up with anything, not even an attempt to break it down. Does anyone here know where to find info on this?

[esquire]

Originally Posted by dmacc

A cousin messaged me complaining about the municipal taxes increasing now that Gillingham will be the next Mayor. He claimed that Winnipeg taxes are much higher relative to other jurisdictions. I felt certain he was wrong and attempted to find information last night to prove it. I could not come up with anything, not even an attempt to break it down. Does anyone here know where to find info on this?

I'm pretty sure the City of Winnipeg puts out a slide deck every year that shows where Winnipeg taxes rank compared to other Canadian cities. I'll see if I can dig it up before Winnipegger beats me to it, ha.

EDIT: I took a look on the city's corporate finance website and the comparison chart they put out year after year is no longer there... sorry to disappoint

[cheswick]

Originally Posted by dmacc

A cousin messaged me complaining about the municipal taxes increasing now that Gillingham will be the next Mayor. He claimed that Winnipeg taxes are much higher relative to other jurisdictions. I felt certain he was wrong and attempted to find information last night to prove it. I could not come up with anything, not even an attempt to break it down. Does anyone here know where to find info on this?

When people are claiming Winnipeg property taxes are higher, they're referring to rate per $1000 of assessed value. Vancouver is amongst the lowest in this measure. This doesn't take into account that Winnipeg property values are lower than Canadian average while Vancouver has a large number of $1m plus properties. Such an article from the real estate news:
https://www.winnipegregionalrealesta...hest-in-canada


Someone posted on these boards not long ago that going by the raw property tax paid, Winnipeg is below the Canadian average.

[Biff]

The City of Winnipeg has one of the lowest Municipal property taxes in the country (tax from the COW). When you add in the School taxes that the Province adds on to our property tax bill each year we have some of the highest property taxes in Canada.

Like them or not, the current PC Government has promised to remove the School tax from the municipal property tax bill.

[dmacc]

Originally Posted by cheswick

When people are claiming Winnipeg property taxes are higher, they're referring to rate per $1000 of assessed value. Vancouver is amongst the lowest in this measure. This doesn't take into account that Winnipeg property values are lower than Canadian average while Vancouver has a large number of $1m plus properties. Such an article from the real estate news:
https://www.winnipegregionalrealesta...hest-in-canada


Someone posted on these boards not long ago that going by the raw property tax paid, Winnipeg is below the Canadian average.

Thanks, interesting that Winnipeg's Municipal/Education split is nearly 50/50 before the $700 credit. Edmonton and Regina's are 71/29 and 63/37 respectively. Though I guess that $700 credit would bring the ratio more in line with those cities.

Originally Posted by Biff

The City of Winnipeg has one of the lowest Municipal property taxes in the country (tax from the COW). When you add in the School taxes that the Province adds on to our property tax bill each year we have some of the highest property taxes in Canada.

Like them or not, the current PC Government has promised to remove the School tax from the municipal property tax bill.

Do you have any documentation to support your statement.

[bomberjet]

The school tax rebate is a sham. More handouts. That money came from debt IIRC, not from other sources of income.

Yes that needs to be changed, but not by taking loans.

[wags_in_the_peg]

MB is one of the few provinces collecting school taxes this way. They will be removing it then out Civic tax bill will go up which hopefully ultimately ends up being a lower overall tax bill!

[Biff]

Just what I have found quickly.

I Guess at 1.34% it is not the lowest, I stand corrected. Some other majors Toronto - 1.0%, Montreal - .82, Edmonton - .95%, Halifax - 1.18%. Vancouver is crazy at .29% but their housing costs so much more. I guess my point was that the stupid school component makes our Municipal rate look ridiculous to other municipalities at 2.77%.

https://wowa.ca/taxes/winnipeg-property-tax



https://www.nerdwallet.com/ca/mortga...s-property-tax

[Winnipegger]

Comparing tax rates is useless when assessment values vary widely so much across Canada. The tax rate required to levy $X from the average person living in a $1.3 million condo in Toronto is going to be much smaller than the tax rate required to levy $X from the average person living in a $300k house in Winnipeg, yet both households likely have similar income. Therefore it's better to compare the average tax bill of the average household across cities, not tax rates. Naturally Winnipeg will have a much higher tax rate than other Canadian cities due to the relatively lower value of our assessment base.

[dmacc]

Thanks Biff, the extra info is helpful. Seems based on tax rate that we are quite high, most other large cities being below 1% while even if you don't consider the education portion for Winnipeg, we are still around 1.25%.