Several Tri-City politicians will travel to Winnipeg this week for the Federation of Canadian Municipalities' (FCM) convention.
And Port Coquitlam's representatives — Mayor Greg Moore and councillors Laura Dupont, Mike Forrest and Darrell Penner — will be busy lobbying other delegates and the FCM board of directors to see their resolutions passed.
PoCo city council has its name attached to three resolutions pertaining to:
• the national pharmacare strategy;
• the federal tax incentive for food waste;
• and Canadian rail safety.
On pharmacare, PoCo is one of 11 municipalities to push the feds to create a national program as an extension of medicare (the resolution is one of four to be considered Saturday).
But the food waste reduction resolution is to be considered by the FCM board of directors' meeting in September, as is the rail safety resolution: PoCo wants the federal government to set up a program in which shippers of hazardous goods are charged a fee to create an independent emergency response program.
The latter resolution comes after the rail disaster at Lac-Mégantic, which killed 42 people and levelled more than 30 buildings.
Neither Coquitlam nor Port Moody is sponsoring a resolution but local politicians attending FCM include, from Coquitlam, Mayor Richard Stewart and councillors Dennis Marsden, Teri Towner, Chris Wilson and Bonita Zarrillo; and from Port Moody, Mayor Mike Clay and councillors Diana Dilworth and Zoe Royer.
The annual conference and trade show starts Thursday and runs until Sunday at the RBC Convention Centre in Winnipeg.
In past years, Tri-City mayors have travelled together to FCM conferences by RV to learn about other municipalities and industry along the way but no Town Haul trip is planned for this year.
jwarren@tricitynews.com
@jwarrenTC
