Canada's big city mayors are planning a cross-country tour to talk to residents about the infrastructure deficit.
Mayors from the country's biggest 18 municipalities met in Toronto Thursday to talk about badly needed repairs to roads, bridges and sewers. They're calling for federal party leaders to spell out how they would address the funding gap. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities has asked the federal government for another $2.5-billion a year in infrastructure funds to keep the country competitive globally.
Windsor's Drew Dilkens says the issue has come up at past summits, but this one was different. "In the past it was getting together, and there was a photo session and a press conference and then everybody would go back to their own municipalities and get on with their life," he says. "We now realize that the flaws in our approach in the past is that we didn't have a sustained campaign. It's going to be different this time. We will have a sustained campaign. We will be doing a cross-Canada tour, really talking to citizens, engaging them."
He also says it could be a federal election issue. "2015 is very important because of the election. It presents a great opportunity to have a very important dialogue with all of the leaders. We're hoping that each of them pick up on these issues and take them very, very seriously because they affect all of their constituents across the country."
Soon after Essex County Engineer Tom Bateman was elected president of the Ontario Good Roads Association, he called for greater flexibility for municipalities to raise funds independent of property taxes. Dilkens says the mayors touched on the possibility of lobbying for greater taxation powers, similar to the Toronto Act and recognized the need to raise new revenue streams but didn't get into detail.
Public transit and affordable housing were also on Thursday's agenda.
