It seems that municipalities across Ontario are facing a series of crises.
From issues like homelessness and addiction to the scarcity of affordable housing and overall living costs, almost every area in the province is feeling the effects.
The Ontario Big City Mayors (OBCM) caucus gathers every few months to tackle significant problems affecting the province and explore collaborative solutions.
This week, 29 big city mayors gathered in Waterloo to discuss various topics related to Ontario.
Waterloo Mayor Dorothy Mc Cabe hosted the meeting at the Delta Hotel on Erb St. W.
In an interview with 570 News Radio, she shared that their conversations mainly focused on the Canada-Ontario Partnership to Build program.
“We were all pleased to see the federal and provincial governments come to the table with the $8.8 billion infrastructure funding program. We’re really pleased they recognize that they have a significant role to play with infrastructure funding.”
Officials from the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing were present to provide information about the program. Mc Cabe mentioned that there are still some questions regarding specific details.
“There were a lot of questions, a lot of back-and-forth dialog. There are still some answers that we need from the Ministry staff. They’ve committed to get back to us as soon as possible because we know the timelines are really tight with this program,” said Mc Cabe.
An additional point of discussion was one that Mc Cabe has been highlighting for several years now.
“Municipalities operate with a very old, 19th century property tax funding model that is just not at all set-up to deal with the complexities of the issues of which municipalities deal with in this day and age,” Mc Cabe mentioned.
“We do continue to call on the federal and provincial governments to sit down with us and discuss a new deal for municipalities and a new way of working together so we can really collaborate to solve issues in our communities.”
The 29 members of the OBCM caucus represent nearly 70 percent of Ontario’s population and close to 30 percent of Canada’s entire population.
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