| One well known champion BIA opponent is Bob Adams, of Adams Rent-All Limited on Avenue Road in Toronto. His success in helping defeat BIAs (including an existing BIA) has made him an expert on the subject, and he has been offering the benefit of his experience to other businesspeople who find themselves "members" of an "association" they never chose to join in the first place.
Mr. Adams has even brought the matter of BIAs to the attention of the National Citizens' Coalition (NCC) where his letter titled "Taxation Without Representation" was featured in the November 1988 issue of Overview (an NCC newsletter). Following is a reproduction of Mr. Adams correspondence with John Eakins, of the Ministry of Municipal Affairs, on the subject of Ontario's BIAs. We believe the arguments speak for themselves. |
December 2, 1988
John Eakins, Minister
Ministry of Municipal Affairs
17th Floor
777 Bay Street
Toronto, Ontario
M5G 2E5
Dear Sir:
Thank you for your letter of September 9, 1988. I am pleased that you intend to afford everyone directly affected by this legislation the opportunity to express their concerns during your review.
May I ask what mechanism you intend to employ so that these concerns may be heard?
I have seen the reports in the press regarding difficulties of the Mississauga and other B.I.A.'s. It appears that the same old problems keep recurring.
It is my opinion that flaws in the original Ontario legislation are the root cause.
In your present review of the legislation, I believe the changes required should address the following:
1.The manner in which B.I.A.'s are installed.
2.The procedure of appointing the Board of Management.
3.The elegibility of Board members.
4.The procedure for getting rid of B.I.A.
To expand on the 4 points above:
1. I have spoken to several of the merchants in B.I.A.'s in trouble now and without exception these people have no recollection or at best a very dim one of ever being notified of the upcoming B.I.A. In the O'Connor Drive, East York, B.I.A. which was eventually rejected, I spoke to every merchant (about 100). The notice that East York sent out was a typical B.I.A. notification. I would say that when the notice arrived the average businessman had no idea what a B.I.A. was all about or what the implications were.
Until you visit these typical small businessmen you can not realize
a)How busy they are.
b)How unreasonable it is to expect a welder or an auto mechanic or a new immigrant to understand or to react in a sophisticated manner to this notice.
c)How cynical they are about taxes inflicted on them by government.
d)How little they read notices from local governments especially when the words used are not readily understandable. The notice is being sent in a form to people many of whom are ill-equipped to understand it.
e)How unreasonable it is to expect them to marshall forces, and to get organized to resist or reject B.I.A.'s. The onus is on them not those in favour.
f)Typically they glance at the B.I.A. notice and chuck it out as though it was a notice of a by-law change that did not really concern them.
g)How myopic they are when it comes to working at their business.
h)How disinterested they are in forming any type of business association. They are quite certain their business will succeed or fail on their talents not on any local business association,
What all this boils down to is that B.I.A. By-laws usually or often are passed in an underhanded way. It is sneaky, dishonourable, and close to being a shell game. Canada is still a first class country. It's citizens deserve and should expect fair treatment by one of its Provincial governments.
2.The difficulties being experienced by B.I.A.'s in Mimico, Burlington, Oakville, Bronte, Cookstown, Ottawa St. in Hamilton and earlier, here on Avenue Road are partly caused by merchant dissatisfaction with the Board of Management.
It is only the merchants who pay for B.I.A.'s so surely it is they who should decide on their own Board. When the Board is appointed by council it is political common sense for council to appoint those who they favour not who the merchants want. I will never get over the fact that after 5 years of bad feeling created here on Avenue Road because of our B.I.A., North York Council had the gall to appoint a Board representing 15% of the street when we the opposition represented 85%. It was James Otis (1725-1783) who said "Taxation without representation is tyranny". Would it not be reasonable to allow B.I.A. merchants to have an election ok'd and supervised by council, if necessary, and then have council appoint those elected by the merchants. This would go a long way to preventing further B.I.A. difficulties.
3.Line 4, page 2, Section 217 of the Municipal Act uses the word "nominees". The context in which it is used is the appointment by council of the Board of Management. What it appears to mean is that a board member must be from the B.I.A. area concerned but once he is appointed he may appoint a nominee who can be, and has been in actual practice, from outside the area. This means someone with a business on Yonge St. could sit on our Avenue Road Board. This obviously is a formula for dissension.
4.The present procedure to get rid of a B.I.A. is to have the local council repeal the By-law. This would be fine except that it doesn't work when the local councillor favours the B.I.A. which they almost always do. This is really the same problem as that stated in 2, whereby the merchants who are paying are dominated by the local council because it is council who passes the by-law and repeals the by-law. Apparently, what is wanted of the merchants is for them to pay but not to have any real power.
I and others look forward to being consulted in your review of the present legislation.
Yours sincerely,
Bob Adams
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last updated on April 28, 2002
