In late March, when the federal government unveils its new budget, community leaders across the country will be looking for a long-term plan that helps cities and towns deliver services that support a competitive economy, create jobs and protect our quality of life.
We're not asking for money for frills or non-essentials.
We need stable, predictable, long-term funding to pay for basic public infrastructure, such as water treatment facilities that assure safe and clean water comes out of our taps and sewage treatment plants that protect the environment and human health.
Metro Vancouver supports a Federation of Canadian Municipalities-led campaign for a new national long-term plan, spanning at least 10 years, to address our "infrastructure deficit."
"Public infrastructure is the backbone of our economy and quality of life, but after decades of under-investment, Canada is only just beginning to confront its 'infrastructure deficit,' a backlog of delayed repairs and construction that hurts every Canadian family and business," the FCM notes.
"For 25 years Canadians have watched the symptoms of the infrastructure deficit grow: rusting bridges, crumbling roads, crowded buses and subways...
"How has this happened? Revenue imbalance. Municipalities own 53% of the country's infrastructure but collect just eight cents of every tax dollar paid in Canada, with the other 92 cents going to federal, provincial and territorial governments."
After the international recession battered Canada's economy five years ago, the federal government responded with a short-term program that funded "shovel-ready" municipal construction projects.
In November 2011, federal Transport Minister Denis Lebel announced the government's commitment to develop a new, long-term infrastructure program that would replace the Building Canada Plan, which will expire in 2014.
The clock is ticking.
Metro Vancouver hopes this year's budget will deliver funding and planning certainty by eliminating a reliance on programs that are essentially application-based "lotteries."
Although we believe application-based programs can certainly deliver value when major, one-time capital investments are required, a broad-based system that relies almost exclusively on a "one-off" project assessment is not efficient, sustainable or equitable. It prevents municipalities from leveraging other financing against a predictable funding stream. It limits access to private capital. It shifts capital budgets away from top-tier priorities toward "shovel-ready" projects deemed more likely to receive funding. It favours new construction at the expense of maintenance. It often prevents participation by smaller communities, resulting in uneven funding distribution. And it politicizes the capital planning process by creating intra-regional competition for scarce project dollars.
As an example of this, we point out that Metro Vancouver submitted applications for six projects that had an aggregate value in excess of $272 million as part of the government's 2008/'09 infrastructure program but ultimately received just $3 million of federal support for one project.
The Metro Vancouver board of directors is unanimous in its view that, for the new long-term plan to be successful, it must include three fundamental fiscal and policy elements:
sufficient funding to catch up on the infrastructure backlog;
a time frame that allows for effective asset life-cycle management;
program architecture that provides funding certainty for local governments to ensure proper planning and decision-making.
That's the announcement we are hoping to hear when federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty delivers the 2013 budget speech.
-Greg Moore, mayor of Port Coquitlam, is the chair of Metro Vancouver's board of directors; Raymond Louie, the board's vice-chair, is a Vancouver city councillor and third vice-president of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities.
