Democracy in action

Prompt Action by Alert Citizens Block a New Raid on the Pockets of Montreal Ratepayers

The "Evaluation Roll”, in a municipality, is the basis on which is calculated the Real Estate Assessment - Tax on property.

The "Evaluation Roll” shows the estimated rental value of your property. The estimate is not made by you, but by the official estimator appointed by the authority of your municipal council. The higher the estimate, the higher the levy, even if the assessment rate remains at the same percentage. For a concrete example:

A modest four-room dwelling, situated on Chabot street, Montreal, was estimated at $3,100 rental value in 1947; and the annual composite tax (City and Schoolboard) charged to the owner, amounted to $86.40.

In 1950, the estimate was revised — Upped as usual — and set at $4,500. The effect of this was to raise the composite tax from $86.40 to $133.43 for each of the three years 1951-52-53.

The water tax is calculated on the same basis; and in the case of the same houseowner, was raised from $24.75 to $36.00 by the same book entry of the estimator, although no change had taken place in the quantity or quality of the water used.

In accordance with the charter of the city of Montreal, the evaluation roll is revised every three years. 1953 was a revision year. And about the middle of December last, the property owners of the city began to receive from the Assessors' department, notification of the new evaluation of their property for tax purposes. They were at the same time advised that it was their privilege to contest the evaluation, by writing to the Chief Assessor "between the 1st and 31st of December". Even if you received your notification as late as the 30th of December, you must enter any protest before the closing office hours of the next day. And if you received no notification at all, your privilege was simply to hurry up to the city hall, perhaps six miles from your home, in the congested traffic of Christmastide, and ask to see the roll.

Such is the treatment given to the herd of ratepayers by the omnipotent bureaucracy of our modern civilization.

The most staggering shock, however, was the discovery of the new figures placed on the roll.

In spite of all previous raises, the new estimate blew the evaluation up by 20, 40, 60, and in some cases as much as 70 per cent.

The devil had surely taken possession of the honeysuckers at the city hall. A wholesale robbery had been planned. A veritable hold-up, in which the gangster's pistol is efficiently replaced by the menace of confiscating your property if you refuse to spill the dough.

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But there is something new and on the move to the rank and file of Montrealers, and the City masses were to learn it. For several years, the Social Credit Movement has been teaching and urging its adherents to practice the democratic way. It's no use sitting down and moaning in a corner; it's not even efficient to let your wife or your neighbour hear your groans. You have elected and are paying representatives at the city hall. What are you paying them for? Have you nothing to tell when some bureaucrat, supposed to take his cue from the representatives of the people, is raiding your pockets?

Too often also, individuals have been led to think that, once they have signed membership and paid their contribution to some association, they are protected against all unpleasant measures: the group will attend to their interests!

Social Crediters have always considered, and made known on all occasions, that individuals have better pull on their own than join in association just for the purposes of discharging their responsability upon the group. In the Union of Electors, the political formula of our Social Crediters, the individual members are trained to participate personally in concerted action.

Some other organizations have witnessed the efficiency of the method and have begun to adopt it.

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The new invasion by the taxmongers of the City Hall demanded prompt action, and the Union of Electors of Montreal was prompt to act.

On the 16th of December, 5,000 circular letters were sent from this office to our Montreal subscribers, to "Vers Demain" and "Social Credit". The letters gave the facts and suggested lines of action: Telephone your protests to the Councillors, to members of the City Executive, to the Chief Estimator; file your written protest against your new valuation, dispatching it to the Assessors' Office. Tenants were invited to join in the protest, a raise in taxes being bound to mean, before long, a raise in their monthly rent. A list of the 99 Councillors, with address and phone number, accompanied the circular.

We also contacted other groups, asking them to press or encourage their members to similar action.

The response was rapid: The Councillors' phone lines kept hot. The Chief Assessor's Office was deluged, within just a few days, by more than 15,000 official protests from ratepayers, auguring an impossible task for the Board of Revision, which would have to hear each case.

This wide-spread and openly-expressed rebellion against higher taxation was the talk of the day. Newspapers could display such headings as "A Storm of Protests Stirs the Metropolis."....

The ball was rolling, bigger and bigger. And on Christmas Eve, hardly a week after the call to action, the news went over the air that His Lordship the Mayor of Montreal would broadcast a statement regarding the evaluation roll, at 11.55 a.m., that day, 24th of December... In his statement, Mayor Houde made it known that he was calling a special and urgent session of the Councillors for the following Tuesday, where a resolution would be submitted to ask the provincial government to annul the new evaluation roll and permit the old one to continue for a period to be determined!

This statement came as a great relief to scores of thousands of houseowners in Montreal, of whom quite a number, feeling unable to carry the added weight, were already advertising their house for sale.

This was a lesson for the sub-tyrants of Finance, who thought they could indefinitely skin the people, without their raising a howl.

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Although the wave of protests was impressive, the truth remains that only an active minority did the job, while the whole body of ratepayers will reap the benefit. But such is the Social Credit way. What Social Crediters ask, they always ask for everybody - never for themselves alone.

It must be added that the active minority is sure to grow: nothing succeeds like success. And while growing, this active minority will also lose nothing of its militancy. Social Crediters are particularly well equipped to fight against high taxation. They know that taxation, as we have it, amounts to legalized robbery. They have always proclaimed that developments in a city or country are an enrichment, and that an enrichment should logically generate dividends, not taxes.

Social Crediters have also an alternative to offer for public finance. Of course, a first prerequisite to the abolition of the taxation method is a change from the present false financial system to a Social system of finance. Will the embarrassed municipal bodies come to understand it and join in the demand for the establishment of Social Credit?