Collingwood councillor Kathy Jeffery is joining a chorus of voices calling on the feds to ante up their share of critical infrastructure funding across Canada.
Jeffery is a board member for the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM), which is pushing the federal government to double the Canada Community-Building Fund in their 2024 budget expected to be presented in April.
The Canada Community-Building Fund is intended to be used for infrastructure such as public transit, water and wastewater.
“Without permanent, reliable and flexible funding, we will experience a widening between what needs to be done, and what we can afford to do,” Jeffery explained. “By far, this is the best program a government has ever done for municipalities.”
In Collingwood specifically, the Canada Community-Building Fund has typically granted $600,000 per year to the Collingwood coffers, with Collingwood receiving about $11.4 million since the fund was first struck back in 2005, then called the Gas Tax Fund.
The funds have been used for such projects as Sunset Point Park, crosswalks, a Zamboni for the Central Park ice rink and the Pine St. Bus Terminal.
In 2021 the funding was doubled, with Collingwood receiving $1.2 million that year. The County of Simcoe also receives some of the funds, which trickles down into services they provide for Collingwood residents such as housing or roads.
Jeffery said a key benefit of the fund is it is based solely on population, so municipalities don’t have to write an application pleading their case every year through a competitive process.
“It’s so important to Collingwood in particular,” she said. “The feds have stalled on infrastructure money, and have hinted at attaching housing targets to the CCBF.”
“Any conditions of housing targets to a program like this that runs really well will be detrimental to the very premise upon the fund was pursued and implemented,” said Jeffery.
The issue speaks to the broader concern all municipalities are facing when it comes to provincial and federal governments downloading their responsibilities to municipal governments.
In 2024 alone, the town estimated changes to provincial legislation were responsible for adding $615,000 to Collingwood’s municipal budget.
Municipalities across Canada are feeling the pinch, with recent Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) figures estimating Ontario municipalities subsidize the province by $4 billion due to downloading.
Town treasurer Monica Quinlan notes that both federal and provincial downloading have impacted the town’s finances.
“We do feel the pressures from what was managed federally before,” she said, mentioning climate change and housing as two key examples.
The Town of Collingwood has taken steps on both fronts, hiring a climate change specialist and a housing co-ordinator in recent years to bolster municipal efforts on both files.
“(The) taxpayers are bearing the cost of these things,” she said.
Overall, Quinlan said the application process and parameters for federal grants can be onerous.
“What I think frustrates us the most is the application funding programs. They just don’t always work or align with municipal needs,” she said.
Jeffery points to the issue of housing targets being put on municipalities by both upper levels of government.
“While it’s really cool for the province and the feds to decide how many houses we have, the other side that we know is it would be nice if people could flush toilets in those houses and not have to shower at the gym,” said Jeffery.
The Town of Collingwood, along with other regional municipalities such as Town of the Blue Mountains and New Tecumseth, were slapped last year with an updated figure for the cost of expanding Collingwood’s water treatment plant which serves those communities, to the tune of $270 million.
To date, neither the provincial or federal governments have made solid commitments to assist in funding the cost of the plant expansion.
“It’s a perfect example. The cost went from $70 million pre-COVID to $270 million post-COVID. For a tax base of less than 25,000 people, how can we possibly cope?” said Jeffery.
As the level of government that is the closest to the people, Jeffery said municipalities feel the impacts of federal and provincial decisions first-hand.
“It’s frustrating. It causes a great level of anxiety because you’re caught between what people need and expect and financially what we’re capable of doing,” said Jeffery. “You’re always threading the needle between staff demands, resident demands and showing fiscal restraint.”
“It’s why I’m so keen on this work at the federation,” she said.
