Liberals will have no excuses this time for neglecting cities

In contrast to the Chretien era, this PM-to-be has declared his love for cities, so there's hope for the urban agenda.

Thestar.com
Oct. 21, 2015
By Royson James

We’ve come a long way since that dismal February 2003 when a new federal Liberal government budget delivered mere scraps to starving municipalities.

One headline read: “Feds to Mayors: Drop Dead.”

The Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) called it “doomsday for Canadian municipalities.”

Jean Chretien was Prime Minister. All but one of the ridings in Toronto had voted for his party. If that impressed him, he had a strange way of showing his gratitude.

By November that year, when an unprecedented collection of federal and provincial MPs and MPPs from the GTA gathered at the Sutton Place hotel to talk about the rotten deal Toronto was getting, Liberals held 70 of the 82 GTA seats at Queen’s Park and Ottawa. In essence, they had convened to self-flagellate.

Twelve years later, the Liberal party again commands majority governments in Ontario and nationally. And the GTA is again a sea of red on election night. Again, there are no excuses to be found.

Under Chretien, cities expected the back of the hand. And in Ontario, municipalities had just emerged from the manacles of the Mike Harris regime.

This time, the Prime Minister has declared his love for cities. Justin Trudeau is effusive and open to the urban agenda, where Chretien was cold and dismissive. There’s hope.

Should the Trudeau Liberals deliver on the 2015 election promises, cities will be reaping seeds sown by so many, so long ago.

Remember the Crumbling Financial Partnership, a report from Dale Richmond, CAO of the now-buried Metro government? The Anne Golden task force? The urban agenda report from MP Judy Sgro that Chrétien tossed on the pile?

Remember the Star’s years-long campaign for a “new deal for cities,” the C5 meeting of Canada’s five largest cities in Winnipeg, the game-changing 1999 report from urban planner Joe Berridge that raised alarm at how little Canada was spending on its cities, while our competitors galloped ahead?

And the smart, amazing civic convener, the late David Pecaut, who managed to get bank presidents and homeless activists to join in an unstoppable agitation aimed at delivering money, power and autonomy to Canada’s cities.

After that horrible 2003 budget, the advocates doubled down. A massive coalition sent a stinging letter to the federal government demanding intervention to stop cities from slipping further into ruin.

Today, cities anticipate that the feds will spend $60 billion on public transit, social infrastructure (housing, childcare), traditional building needs and green projects over the next decade - quadrupling current rates. It’s what Trudeau promised, in a gambit that’s predicated on the government incurring deficits in the early years to pay for it.

What a turnaround. The challenge now is three-fold:

First, keep reminding the federal government that electoral support in urban regions delivered the majority government, so don’t get cold feet. Second, don’t settle for what Trudeau has promised, because so much more is needed. And third, don’t screw up this unique opportunity by wasting the largesse on frivolous or politically motivated projects.

Already, Trudeau has promised money for SmartTrack, a Toronto project Mayor John Tory favours. But council has not voted on it. Many questions remain unanswered. And we don’t know if this is the city’s top priority, measured against other transit demands.

The temptation - politician to politician - is always to trade financial support for electoral backing. It’s pork-barreling. What Toronto really needs is careful and rigorous examination of transit projects to deliver ones that move people, not votes. The sudden availability of funds does not reduce the need for rigour; there are too many needs to waste a single dollar.

On housing, cities need about $2 billion a year to shore up the old federal housing subsidies, now ending. That’s the amount the Liberals have promised for all “social infrastructure” - housing, childcare, arts, culture. So, more advocacy is needed. Childcare advocates say they alone need $1 billion a year.

On Jan. 12, 2002, the Star ran a report card, evaluating the performance of party leaders on the urban agenda. Chretien got a failing grade. I wrote at the time:

Considering the performance of his 22-member Toronto caucus - a muted, mealy-mouthed bunch of self-satisfied do-nothings - Chretien has delivered as little as could be expected ... On housing, transit, city charter status and a broad urban agenda that takes care of the city’s key pressure points, he’s adrift.”

I don’t anticipate having to write the same about the new Liberal Prime Minister.