More infrastructure cash for cities at heart of NDP’s urban strategy

NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair to pledge extra cash in speech to Canada’s mayors

Thestar.com
June 4, 2015
By Bruce Campion-Smith and Les Whittington

NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair is promising to give Canadian cities dramatically more federal funding to pay for urban infrastructure, a big-ticket pledge that would help fuel Toronto’s transit expansion, the Star has learned.

Mulcair is expected to make the promise Saturday when he speaks to municipal leaders gathered in Edmonton at the annual conference of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities.

The NDP are proposing to start by giving cities an extra cent of the federal gas tax, which would mean an extra $420 million a year, on top of the $2.1 billion in existing gas tax transfers.

It’s a variation of their 2011 election pledge to earmark funding for transit improvements.

But the NDP are vowing to go further by boosting funding by $1.5 billion by the end of their first term in government, meaning a total of $3.7 billion a year dedicated to “core infrastructure,” according to a draft NDP document obtained by the Star.

“Dedicated, predictable and transparent federal funding would help municipalities plan to meet their priorities while creating tens of thousands of new jobs in local communities,” the document states.

Ottawa currently gives cities 5 cents of the federal gas tax for environmentally sustainable infrastructure, which is handed out based on population.

The City of Toronto expects to receive about $152 million in gas tax funding in 2015. Past gas tax funding has been used by the city for the purchase of new subways and streetcars as well as ongoing work on TTC properties.

The promise of additional funding is at the core of the NDP’s urban strategy titled, “Stronger Cities and Communities.”

But Mulcair is also expected to use the keynote address to reveal a public transit strategy, to be done in partnership with provinces and territories, as well as a plan to make housing more affordable.

“Canadians’ commutes to work and school are increasingly frustrated by lengthy commute times and crumbling roads and bridges. Decades of Conservative and Liberal neglect have only made these problems worse,” the NDP document states.

Mulcair is also expected to promise municipal leaders greater freedom in how they spend the federal cash by removing what the NDP calls “unnecessary obstacles, like the Conservatives’ ideological and inefficient obligation to public private partnerships.”

Mulcair previewed the strategy for Toronto Mayor John Tory and Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre on Tuesday. The NDP’s urban plan comes as the party hopes to win in Greater Toronto, Vancouver and other cities in what promises to be hard-fought federal election this fall.

Indeed, the competing political visions for transforming Canada’s hard-pressed cities will be front and centre when mayors gather for their annual conference over the next four days in Edmonton.

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau and the Green party’s Elizabeth May are also expected to use speeches to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) to spell out some of the pledges for cities they will put before voters in the fall.

Trudeau is likely this week to expand on the Liberals’ cities agenda, which is expected to form a key element of their election platform. Liberals are hinting if elected they would take steps to boost urban infrastructure spending by encouraging large pension funds to invest in major, long-term building projects in Canada rather than pump money into projects abroad.

And Finance Minister Joe Oliver will review the infrastructure programs announced recently by the Harper government.

Oliver will stress the Conservatives’ $5 billion a year in existing infrastructure programs, including the annual $2 billion federal Gas Tax Fund, a $1-billion annual commitment to renovations of on-reserve schools and long-term spending under the New Building Canada Plan. And the new public transit fund will feature prominently in his message.

After years of pressing Ottawa to view cities’ problems with urgency, the FCM, which represents nearly 2,000 communities and associations, feels it has made a breakthrough - convincing governments to see municipal leaders more as equal participants in national policymaking rather than just lobbyists questing for more funding.

“Our cities and communities propel our country forward. FCM is engaging municipal officials and Canadians from coast to coast to coast to make the issues that matter most to us the focus of the next federal election,” the FCM said in a recent policy statement.