The Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FMC) met in Ottawa Dec 5th -8th for Advocacy Days. In addition to board meetings, Manitoba FCM Director Brandon Burley said, the purpose was to advocate for priorities and needs of municipalities.
Burley reported, they talked to MPs from Federal Government and Opposition parties.
“To ensure they got the message, we have definite challenges related to housing and medical crises and community safety problems, as well as infrastructure problems. And so, we do recognize there's a cap on total amount of dollars that can be spent, and there's a finite number of resources. I do believe municipalities in many cases are the key partner in delivering programs that affect our residents. We're closest to the people. The message clearly was, we need to be active partners in the delivery of programs that affect our residents.”
Burley highlighted some of the issues talked about in the meetings around a variety of meeting tables.
“There was a lot of really good discussion, in particular about rapid housing and community safety, but also the unbelievable need for partners in growth, in particular as it relates to infrastructure. Under the ICIP (Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program) in the Canadian Community Building Fund, we're submitting applications for funding that sometimes aren't acknowledged for years, and when they are, the pricing of that programming or project has significantly changed.”
He gave an example.
“In particular, one example is our wastewater treatment plant. The funding was approved way back in 2014, but now we're sitting in 2022 trying to deliver a solution in a project on pricing that's eight years old. So, any changes in pricing right now doesn't go to the federal government or the provincial government, it's downloaded to the municipalities. In our case, that's half the price of that project, in just overages alone. We're asking for progressive pricing models that allow projects to have some variety of adjustment for inflation from the time of application to the time of project delivery.”
Burley said the opportunity to network and hear the creative ways municipalities overcome ongoing challenges was a positive take-away from the week.
He shared one disappointing take-away regarding “a significant amount of disrespect for the democratic process.”
Overall, Burley appreciated his time with colleagues and elected representatives. “I went away from the conference strongly believing that the federal government and the ministers responsible in particular had heard our concerns around Community safety and policing costs, but also around the need for rapid housing (RH) and for that RH initiative to not only be permanent, but also be delivered by municipalities as well as a permanent doubling of the CCBF, those are critically important to municipalities across Canada. I think not the federal government, but also the opposition got the message that those were our key priorities.” FCM will meet again in Spring of 2023.