Solving Halifax's Budget Problems

By now, we’ve all heard quite a bit about the $30-million budget shortfall that the Halifax Regional Municipality is facing.

And we’ve heard some of the rather frantic suggestions coming from Halifax Regional Council about how the municipality should deal with that budget shortfall. Those suggestions have ranged from raising the general tax rate, to increasing parking meter fees, to charging more to bury the dead in cemeteries owned by the city.

I’m certainly no financial wizard – just ask my accountant, who has a pretty good laugh every year when I bring him my tax information – but I have creative-thinking skills on my side, so I’ve been putting my head into coming up with some better ways for our municipal government to save money and, hopefully, to perk up those sagging revenues.

First of all, there’s a fully-financially-exploitable phenomenon happening daily, right under our noses, and we’re just not taking advantage of it. I’m referring, of course, to street hockey. If these rollerblading rug-rats want to use our streets for free every day, well, they can just forget it. From now on, when the police aren’t in there busting up some spirited scrimmage (or, you know, whatever the equivalent hockey term is) they should be diligently collecting mandatory street-rink dues. What, we’re supposed to just let these kids have fun for free? It costs money to get in shape and have fun; I know this because that’s how it works for adults. Besides, who has more money these days? The kids are hoarding their allowances and fast-food restaurant salaries, and that is an opportunity ripe for the exploitation.

Here’s another great idea: implement a fine which will be applied to HRM council members each time one of them utters the words “cat”, “dog”’ or “chicken” during a council meeting. Well, unless it’s lunch time, I guess. And in that case, only “chicken” gets a pass. Actually, on second thought, I think I’m going to give the word “chicken” a pass entirely, because I foresee much more chicken-talk in our future, given that many other parts of the civilized world have more or less embraced the urban-chicken phenomenon. Plus, that debate holds a lot of potential entertainment value. So, okay, councillors can say “chicken.” But “dog” and “cat” – still big fines for those ones.

Speaking of our hard-working council members, how about this one? A “talking tax,” to be charged to any councillor who doesn’t make at least one valid point per five minutes of speaking-time during council meetings. I think this could be a big income-generator for the city, because I don’t think the tax would serve as much of a deterrent to the actual behavior, which often seems to be more motivated by grandstanding than actual logical arguing. But I’m just generalizing here; I mean, as a rule, certainly it appears, if the honourable councillors would agree, that in terms of this particular situation, if I could just make the point...

And, okay, not to totally pick on council, but I had just one more revenue-generating idea for our local government: what about a “lip-service levy” each time a city councillor, who travels exclusively by car, recommends that everyone else take the bus? Again: potential to be a big money-maker for us.

See? All it takes is a little creative thinking. I bet, if we all put our heads together, we could collectively come up with all sorts of ingenious ways to dig our lovely city out of its unfortunate $30-million hole.