The mayor of Huron East says cuts to the Ontario Municipal Partnership Funding unfairly target rural Ontario.
Bernie MacLellan explains farm properties had been taxed at a 25 per cent rate, with the province covering the remaining 75 per cent. Municipalities used that money to cover their costs. But MacLellan says that 75 per cent is being clawed back through reductions in the OMPF funding and that's really hurting rural municipalities.
MacLellan points out that everybody uses that farmland indirectly, because everyone eats what is grown on that land and it should be a provincial responsibility because it is the province that determines the rates.
MacLellan says by the end of this year he believes the 75 per cent provincial share will be phased out completely and he says that's something that's going to have to be looked at in the future.