[getsmart-l] Fw: $100-billion needed to rebuild aging infrastructure BUT municipalities keep expanding!!

[John O'Gorman]

This very contradiction came up  at York's Planning for Tomorrow - Growth Management  meeting on Sept. 27.

York  Region, apparently, is not  eager to face the dilemma. Our municipalities are struggling to afford to repair or replace our oldest infrastructure - the too small and cracking - yet they insist upon expanding and creating new infrastructure - roads, storm sewers, sanitary sewers, bridges - with no funding plan in place on how to replace those in 50 to 70  years. Building charges allegedly pay for most of the expansion but where is the "set aside" for a replacement fund.?

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20071012.MAYORS12/TPStory/?query=bryden
URBAN AFFAIRS

As Throne Speech nears, mayors call on Ottawa to help fix infrastructure
JOAN BRYDEN 

The Canadian Press/Globe and Mail October 12, 2007

OTTAWA -- Big-city mayors say Canadian communities desperately need as much as $100-billion to rebuild aging infrastructure, but they fear plans to limit federal spending power could leave them out in the cold.

Meeting yesterday to plot strategy before next week's Throne Speech, the mayors said most municipal infrastructure is rapidly reaching the end of its service life and the cost to replace it has ballooned.

Previous estimates pegged the so-called infrastructure deficit at $60-billion. Regina Mayor Pat Fiacco said a new study, commissioned by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and to be released next month, suggests the real deficit is as much as $100-billion.

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty set aside $33-billion for infrastructure in the last budget, parcelled out over seven years. But Mr. Fiacco said only $3-billion to $4-billion of that is earmarked specifically for municipalities and much more needs to be done.

Mr. Fiacco urged Prime Minister Stephen Harper to promise dedicated, long-term, predictable infrastructure funding in Tuesday's Throne Speech, which will outline the government's agenda for the next session of Parliament.

The mayors want one cent from every dollar raised by the GST to be dedicated to municipal infrastructure. They also want the gas tax fund, worth $11-billion over seven years, to be made permanent.

"Cities are making do with just eight cents of every tax dollar collected in Canada while the federal, provincial and territorial governments take in 92 cents between them," Toronto Mayor David Miller said in a statement.

Mr. Miller said the $14.8-billion federal surplus posted in the 2006-07 fiscal year "underlines Ottawa's refusal to acknowledge that we [cities] face a critical funding crisis and that it's time to share some of its enormous surplus with us."

However, the mayors' hopes for more infrastructure cash could run up against Mr. Harper's promise to constrain the federal government's power to spend money in areas of exclusive provincial jurisdiction.

Gord Steeves, president of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, said mayors don't have any clear idea how Mr. Harper intends to limit the federal spending power. But, since municipalities fall under provincial jurisdiction, they are concerned that Mr. Harper's plan could mean federal infrastructure cash will dry up.

"If what is being said ... is that in some way the federal government would not have some connection to or some obligation to or some willingness to support infrastructure in municipalities, then this [big city mayors] caucus and FCM as an organization would not be supportive of that."

Although municipalities are creatures of the provinces, Mr. Steeves said the federation has always maintained "there still needs to be that connection and that nexus between the federal government and municipalities so that municipalities can build and create the infrastructure necessary to sustain their economies."
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