Federation of Northern Ontario Municipalities, or FONOM, is lobbying the province for an increase in the harmonized sales tax.
The group is joining others in asking for a one per cent increase for municipal infrastructure.
FONOM is supporting the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, which is leading a call-to-action for the HST increase.
Officials say the increase is needed to fund aging municipal infrastructure.
While most association members agree, it's not popular to raise taxes.
They suggest that for the next ten years, there is a need of about $5-billion a year to fix local infrastructure and cover operating needs throughout the province.
However, Timmins Mayor Steve Black says a different approach could be taken.
"For me, I’d be looking to them to do something that they should be doing, which is upload the services that they previously downloaded to municipalities, such as EMS and social services. That would free up a lot of dollars for us to put in infrastructure on its own, versus trying to campaign them to have a one percent HST increase, which I don't think would have that much broad support, at least in this region." said Black.
FONOM officials say the idea to increase the HST in Ontario has been studied for over a year.
They say the plan would be to ensure every municipality receives its fair share.
Al Spacek is the Mayor of Kapuskasing and President of Federation of Northern Ontario Municipalities.
"If you do it per capita, you don't really have a lot of money at the end of the day. So, we put a formula in place that gives you a base amount, irrespective of how small you are, plus there's a top-up on population. So, the big cities get taken care of, as do the small communities in rural and Northern Ontario." said Spacek.
The Kapuskasing Mayor says all political parties were made aware of the ask during the election campaign, but none would run with it.
He says it will be one of the top issues brought up to the new Doug Ford government at their next AMO meeting in August.
