City could get $30M in mining royalties per year: Rodriguez

Sudbury could get at least $30 million in mining royalties per year if the city strikes a deal with the province to get a fair cut of the funds, says mayoral candidate John Rodriguez.

Rodriguez has long been a vocal proponent for the city to receive a share of mining royalties to help address its $700-million infrastructure deficit.

“I think people see the unfairness of the present structure where all the royalties from the wealth that is generated under our feet go to Queen's Park and the federal government,” he said. “None comes to the local municipality.”

Rodriguez said when he was mayor in 2007, local mining companies paid around $60 million in royalties to the province and federal government.

He said Greater Sudbury should receive at least half that amount to help repair the roads heavy mining trucks destroy.

“That to me, is the ultimate in unfairness,” he said. “They're beating our roads to hell.”

In an Oraclepoll survey NorthernLife.ca commissioned, 49.2 per cent of respondents said they think the city can convince the province to share mining royalties.

Just over 29 per cent of respondents said they do not believe the city can convince the province the share the revenues, and 21.2 per cent said they do not know.

Oraclepoll phoned 500 Sudbury residents for the survey and the margin of error is +/- 4.4 per cent 19 times out of 20.

Under the Aggregate Resources Act, Greater Sudbury already receives 7.5 cents per tonne for gravel produced within the city limits. The province receives 13 cents per tonne. There is no such agreement for mining revenues.

Mayoral candidate Dan Melanson said he agrees that the city should receive some royalties from mining companies, but added it would be difficult to lobby the province on that issue.

“That's been an ongoing dialogue for as long as I can remember,” Melanson said. “There hasn't been a whole lot of progress made on it.”

Without a Liberal MPP in Greater Sudbury, Melanson said it will be especially challenging to convince the province it should share its mining royalties with the city.

“The only thing that we can do is lobby the provincial government to take a more realistic stance with regard to being equitable in the revenues that we get back from the mining royalties,” he said.

From 1970 to 2006, major mining companies' contributions to the city's municipal tax base declined from 25 per cent to 6.5 per cent.

When he was mayor, Rodriguez appointed Jose Blanco to oversee a panel on resource revenue sharing.

Blanco's committee produced a report in 2008 called A Refined Argument, that recommended further negotiations between the city and the province to discuss sharing revenues from local mining operations.