Long- term civic infrastructure plan should be ‘ patronage- free,’ politicians say
Federal and municipal politicians want to take the politics out of how civic infrastructure programs are funded by Ottawa.
For generations, the federal government’s participation in rebuilding roads, bridges, sewer and water lines and other pieces of Canadian municipal systems was often dictated by which political party held power in Ottawa, and where its interests lay at any given point. Often federal funds have been parcelled out on a project- byproject basis, sometimes with ad hoc results.
But next month, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities ( FCM) and the Conservative government hope to create a long- term infrastructure renewal program insulated from the vagaries of politics. The impetus is the upcoming expiry of the $ 33- billion Building Canada infrastructure program in 2014. Brought in by the Conservatives in 2007, the program was part of a stimulus package at the start of the recession.
Vancouver Coun. Raymond Louie, the FCM’S British Columbia representative, said the concept for the new plan is to stabilize long- term federal government participation in the massive job of repairing aging municipal systems.
He says several Metro Vancouver projects could be beneficiaries of any plan the FCM and Ottawa agree upon.
Those projects include upgrading the Iona Island and Lions Gate sewage treatment plants to tertiary treatment systems. Last year, Metro approved a $ 1.4- billion plan to upgrade Lions Gate in West Vancouver by 2020 and Iona Island in Richmond by 2030.
“What we’ve been advocating for at the FCM is that, before the expiry of the program in 2014, we need to do an assessment of our infrastructure across the nation and we need to create a logical framework for investment over the longer term,” he said.
The most recent national survey, based on random sampling, showed municipalities needed to spend at least $ 123 billion to catch up. The FCM believes that figure is inaccurate and the total across the country is much larger, Louie said, yet he remained optimistic the federal government would help shoulder the burden.
In November, Denis Lebel, the federal minister of transport, infrastructure and communities, said a new long- term funding program was key to “a prosperous, competitive, and sustainable economy.”
“I have confidence that the words of Minister Lebel will hold water and that, as a former mayor in Quebec, he very much understands the plight of municipalities,” Louie said.
He added the frayed relations between provincial premiers and Ottawa over the health care funding plan hasn’t affected the FCM’S efforts to create an infrastructure program.
Removing the spectre of patronage from federal programs isn’t a far- fetched idea, according to Paddy Smith, a political science professor at Simon Fraser University. He pointed to the recent “patronagefree” decision by the Conservatives to award $ 33 billion in shipbuilding contracts in Halifax and North Vancouver, to the chagrin of Quebec.
“I would say, on the face of it, that [ the infrastructure program] has the potential for depoliticizing the nature of patronage,” he said. “The idea is a step forward.”
How that program will be distributed is important, he said. Will it be based on regional population, or on regional need, he wondered. “B. C. has 12 per cent of the country’s population. Does that mean it will get 12 per cent of the spending? If this is to be based on needs, then much of the program would be used in places like Toronto, Montreal, Hamilton and some of Canada’s oldest cities. These are questions that still need to be answered.”