The Mayors’ Council on Regional Transportation appears to have lost all patience with “garbage” political spin and “smoke and mirrors” from senior levels of government.
Members aired grievances against their federal and provincial counterparts at the council’s December 11 meeting in Burnaby as they considered the senior governments’ track record vis-a-vis funding public transportation.
“It sure would be nice if one day we didn’t have to spend so much damn time fighting with the feds and the Province, for them to just meet their basic responsibility to people,” said an exasperated Brad West, chairman of the council and mayor of Port Coquitlam.
“But that seems to be a fairy tale, anyways.”
Linda Buchanan, mayor of the City of North Vancouver, echoed his comments “about not having to fight all the time for what’s basic and already committed.”
“I think we can be honest that the infrastructure both provincially and federally, that is their responsibility, has not been invested in for decades in terms of maintenance, operations perhaps. Maintenance and replacement,” she said. “So we are left with a very large infrastructure deficit not just for what we need in terms of new, but the renewal of what we currently have to respond to the growth and the people that are here.”
TransLink CEO Kevin Quinn told the council that while it received a commitment of $2.19 billion from the Canada Public Transit Fund, with some of it expected to roll out in 2026, the new federal budget has introduced uncertainty about the future of this funding and status of dedicated federal transit funding.
“I want to emphasize that TransLink has a pipeline of shovel-ready projects that could deliver on shared community objectives, economic productivity, affordability and housing access but we need permanent, predictable funding to do so,” Quinn said.
“This added uncertainty can force us to delay projects, drive up costs and drag out much-needed regional service expansion for customers and is speaking with my transit industry colleagues across Canada I know we all collectively share these concerns.”
Patrick Johnstone, mayor of New Westminster, said local governments have “put their dime down” with transit investments and yet “still here we are – they still have not kept up with their commitment that they already made to us years ago.”
“We have put our money in the pot here, and it’s the other two levels of government who have not put their money into the pot, even taking away money they’ve already committed to the pot,” Johnstone remarked. “I’m afraid that it will sound like we’re pointing fingers when we’re not, we have already done our work and they have not done their work and we need to be clear with that, the provincial and federal government.”
Mike Buda, executive director of the Mayors’ Council Secretariat, recalled the state of things one day before federal budget day, concerning a promise of $30 billion in funding over 10 years.
He noted that under the budget the Canada Public Transit Fund was cut with between $5 billion and $7.6 billion being re-directed to a new general-purpose provincial fund that “gets lots of headlines – the $51 billion Building Canada Strong Fund.”
“It makes it sound like this is all new money. It’s not. Over half of it is actually from the current gas tax fund, or the newest name is the Canadian Community Benefits Fund,” Buda said. “Over half of that $51 billion is a program that’s existed for over 20 years.”
Buda told the council the implications are that at a time more public transit is required to support affordability, the economy and population funding, “direct federal funding for transit is being cut. Although there are elements, there are those in the federal government that suggest that’s not the case, it is absolutely the case. Dedicated federal transit funding is being cut in this budget.”
Buda said many people are under the “misapprehension” there is more funding for municipal infrastructure “when in fact there is not. There’s definitely not.
“So I’ll provide some resources you can share with your local MPs that demonstrate that at least according to the budget document itself, there has been a cut to dedicated municipal funding not just for transit but for other types of municipal infrastructure, and then we’ll certainly follow up with the Liberal pacific caucus as well. Again, I’ve been waiting for more clarification from Ottawa and it just hasn’t been coming.”
“The one thing they’ve been quite successful at doing is obscuring the reality and implications of those decisions and I hope people start to understand it, though,” West said. “That appears to be quite a challenge. So I guess once again we’re going to have to be fighting and advocating and engaging with our federal representatives.”
West added that if political leaders can’t even agree on the basics “of what’s happening, it becomes a real challenge and this is when, I think a situation where politics is triumphing over like basic common sense, where you know you’re reducing funding but you want to give something a new name and it’s all obscured, and it’s smoke and mirrors and it’s political spin, and it’s really just all garbage. Just at least be honest about the choices that you’re making rather than having to spend all this time fighting over whether the funding is there or is not.
“You can bet your bottom dollar that you go and meet with your local MP, as I will meet with mine, and he’s going to say to me oh no, we’re not cutting anything – we’ve got this new fund with a new name – no matter that it’s an old fund with an old name, and you know it’s just these games are just getting so tiring. Hopefully, eventually, voters get fed up with it and start making different decisions around who they want making these decisions.”