Big city mayors meet in Winnipeg
Infrastructure cash, reconciliation on agenda at Federation of Canadian Municipalities conference
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is back in Winnipeg this weekend to attend a national gathering of mayors, city councillors and municipal officials.
Trudeau, who attended the Liberal Party convention in the Manitoba capital last weekend, returns Friday to attend the the annual conference organized by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, which represents cities, towns and rural political entities across the country.
The conference, last held in Winnipeg in 2003, kicks off today with a meeting of 21 big-city mayors, including Toronto's John Tory, Vancouver's Gregor Robertson and Naheed Nenshi from Calgary.
Winnipeg Mayor Brian Bowman, who spent most of Wednesday showing Nenshi around, said some mayors are attending in person this year — rather than sending representatives in their place — in order to see the Canadian Museum for Human Rights.
According to an agenda published by the FCM, the big-city mayors plan to discuss infrastructure funding, housing and reconciliation during meetings with federal Infrastructure and Communities Minister Amarjeet Sohi, Families, Children and Social Development Minister Jean-Yves Duclos and Perry Bellegarde, the national chief of the Assembly of First Nation.
Bowman chairs the FCM working group that's trying to co-ordinate how cities respond to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's calls to action. He took on this task after acknowledging the city's problems with both institutional and overt racism in 2015.
The full FCM conference, which is expected to attract about 2,000 elected officials and bureaucrats to Winnipeg, kicks off Friday with an address by Trudeau. NDP Leader Tom Mulcair and Green Party Leader Elizabeth May and Conservative MP Dianne Watts will also address the conference over the weekend.
Fort Rouge-East Fort Garry Coun. Jenny Gerbasi, an FCM vice-president, said Trudeau's presence at the conference suggests the federal government takes the concerns of municipalities seriously. At budget time in March, the Trudeau government pledged to spend $3.4 billion on transit over three years as well as $5 billion over five years on "green infrastructure" such as waste-water improvements.
Municipal officials, who have lobbied Ottawa for years for more help to repair roads, build transit corridors and improve sewage-treatment plants, want to know more about the federal pledges, Gerbasi said.
"What are these new federal dollars that have been promised? What are they going to look like?" she asked.
She also said the conference offers a chance to show off new attractions in Winnipeg, including the human rights museum and the renovated Assiniboine Park Zoo.
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