-- CTF Accepts Decision of Citizens' Panel, Blasts Local Politicians for Sabotage --

OTTAWA: The Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) sadly accepted today's decision of the Citizens' Panel on Local Governance to disband. CTF Federal Director Walter Robinson empathized with Citizens' Panel decision.

"From the outset, they have been subjected to unwarranted pressure from the municipalities. The premeditated, destructive and contemptuous behaviour exhibited by various municipalities - Nepean and Rockliffe Park in particular - is shameful," huffed Robinson. "After giving the panel a mandate to explore options for regional governance reform, various municipalities set out to undermine the very process they endorsed."

The CTF also noted that municipal taxpayers should be outraged at the waste of hundreds of thousands of dollars. "Municipalities provided a $250,000 budget to fund the Citizens' Panel and then they turned around and spent hundreds of thousands more in undermining the Panel's efforts through taxpayer financed advertising campaigns," added Robinson.

"Our inability to resolve the governance issue locally now gives the province an excuse to impose an Al Leach, big-government solution which may mean higher taxes, fewer services, and more power to municipal unions. This outcome is not in the best interests of taxpayers," said Robinson. "We're deeply saddened that the volunteer efforts of the Citizens' Panel have been deliberately sabotaged. Democratic participation by ordinary citizen's in municipal affairs has been irreparably undermined. "

"The stench of political interference in this process will linger for years to come. Municipal politicians involved in the destruction of the Citizens' Panel have dropped right to the bottom of the food chain. They are nothing more than empire-building, turf-protecting, tax-dollar wasting individuals who placed their own meagre political futures before the true interests of taxpayers who continue to demand real municipal governance reform," concluded Robinson.