Mayor says Federation of Canadian Municipalities meeting focused on infrastructure funding

The Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) held its annual general meeting last week in Winnipeg.

Mayor Lyn Hall was in attendance. He says the meeting was energetic and proactive.

Councillor Garth Frizzell was re-elected as one of the federation’s directors.

“That is a real plus for us to have Councillor Frizzell at that table because, not only does he have direct involvement with the work that FCM does, but it certainly gives him an opportunity to provide, not just advice to our council but to all councils in the northern part of the province and throughout the province.”

Infrastructure management was the main focus of the meeting. With the federal government set to spend $125 billion on infrastructure projects across the country over the next decade, many conversations focused on how municipalities can get a piece of the pie.

“At the FCM it was about how you can access that money – what are the categories you can access that money under, general conversation about the flow of infrastructure dollars to municipalities – and then it’s our responsibility to identify those projects that we want to submit to the feds. They made that [funding] announcement a couple of months ago and what really interests us as a community is how that infrastructure money will be distributed. What are the requirements for us to have an opportunity to get some of that money.”

There’s no timeline yet for disbursement of the money but Hall says the city will be aggressive in submitting what it believes are key projects for the city and the region. Green projects, including river remediation programs, will definitely be on the agenda and upgrades to sections of Highway 16 are also likely candidates.