Stephen Vance, Editor
Week after week, it seems as if we hear our upper levels of government boasting about the billions upon billions of dollars that they will be spending on infrastructure, supposedly in the very near future. Being the ‘infrastructure-nerd’ that I am, I sure hope it’s true, but even more, I hope that many of those billions of dollars will be destined to municipalities, which are arguably in the greatest need of large injections of infrastructure funds.
When I look at all of our various levels of government, municipalities are who I feel for most. Municipalities have the fewest options of all levels of government for generating funds, yet thanks to decades of downloading by the upper levels, their areas of responsibility have greatly increased over the years without also being granted new streams of revenue. Add to that the fact that, unlike upper levels of government, municipalities have limits on the amount of money they can borrow, and they aren’t allowed to carry a deficit, so funding large infrastructure projects like bridge repair or replacement, or road rehabilitation is a challenge for municipalities to say the least.
This has meant that municipalities are forced to constantly be on bended knee with cap in hand begging the province and the feds for a trickle here, and a trickle there of funding for infrastructure needs. But what our municipalities really need is a waterfall of upper level funding for infrastructure.
In little ‘ole Meaford alone, our population of 11,000 is facing the reality of finding a way to fund $30 million in required bridge rehabilitation and repair over the next 10 years, $190 million to address road infrastructure needs over the next 50 years, and $54 million to fund water and waste-water infrastructure needs over the next 25 years.
And that’s just the not-so-sexy stuff. We have an ageing arena and community centre that, while they’ve still got some life in them, won’t last forever, a library that’s falling apart, and a harbour that could use some attention, none of which could be rehabilitated or replaced without assistance from other levels of government.
Some quick math will tell you that for bridges, roads, and water and waste-water infrastructure, this municipality needs to be spending more than $8 million per year. Where does a community of 11,000 find an additional $8 million dollars per year? Anyone have an appetite for a 50 percent property tax increase?
Which brings me back to the province and the feds. The Trudeau government has pledged to spend billions on infrastructure in the coming years, as has the province. This week in fact, the Wynne government here in Ontario announced that they’ve dedicated $3.2 billion from the sale of Hydro One shares to infrastructure needs, bringing their pledge for infrastructure needs to more than $30 billion over the next 10 years.
But we don’t have time for government games, and endless red tape: our municipalities need access to those funds (and unquestionably much more) yesterday.
A couple of times each month I sit through our municipal council meetings, and I see how difficult a challenge it is to try to meet the needs of a municipality without resorting to heavy increases to property taxes. Anyone who thinks that members of council want to increase taxes would be wrong. Wanting to adequately fund the services provided by the municipality (and expected by the residents) is not the same as wanting to increase taxes, though the former could no doubt result in a tax increase. I’ve watched our councils over the years agonize over the tiniest things at budget time in an effort to keep the required tax increase as low as possible. Yes, we can disagree with how council spends taxpayers’ money, and we can debate whether the municipal spending is being managed well, but I’ve never heard a member of council suggest that they want to increase taxes.
I also see how few and far between the opportunities to apply for infrastructure grant funding are, the long waits for a decision of approval or rejection, and really, just how little funding comes in from the upper levels of government when you consider the gravity of the challenges facing this and other municipalities.
Much of the infrastructure we rely on each and every day, often without even giving it a second thought, was built decades ago, and it’s starting to show. Municipalities need a lot of funding from the upper levels of government, and they need it today, not months or years from now. I hope the provincial and federal governments disperse the billions of dollars they have promised for infrastructure needs with as much gusto as when they splashed their pledges all over the media, and at lightning speed.
We’ve spent enough time dilly-dallying on infrastructure repair and replacement funding, let’s get some damned bridges replaced, let’s repair all these crumbling roads, and let’s replace those old pipes we walk and drive over every day before Meaford and hundreds of municipalities like us are faced with not just the fast-approaching end of their useful life spans, but the actual and immediate end with no funding available.
