FCM meetings follow up

I have written before about my involvement with FCM and how we advocate for Cities, Towns and citizens across Canada. We also do a lot of good work internationally helping municipalities build capacity in a variety of areas such as governance. We are recognised as a world leader in Municipal organisation.
Last week our meetings were held in Iqaluit. I know to some it may seem strange that 120 or so of us would travel up for 4 days of meetings but it truly has merit as we get to learn about the history and culture of an area and how some issues can be really divergent from coast to coast to coast.

Our September Board meeting sets the priorities for the next year. It will be a busy year. We have some priorities on a number of fronts. First and foremost for us will be to work with Ottawa so they consider the impacts some legislation may have on us. We all want to try and reflect our communities’ needs and to help build our country as a whole.
For example, the long form census is one we will keep working with. Also, new federal waste water regulations will cost local municipalities billions of dollars to meet the standards set. The total for Vancouver, Halifax, Victoria and Montreal was going to be over 2 billion alone. In some parts of the country it may be a choice for fresh clean water, or wastewater.
Our group is actively involved with the government in the area of International trade and how it affects municipalities. This is the direct result of the stand Halton Hills started against the Buy American protectionist legislation. The Minister has agreed to a working group that works with FCM and its members to keep us informed.
FCM has a Quality of Life reporting system. Halton region is active on the group. One thing that has been found is that our social safety net in Canada is fraying. In the days of Federal and Provincial downloading it has meant the services they provided have shifted onto your tax bill.
We had a great meeting discussing social issues and I had the honour of chairing it.
Next March, the billions of dollars advanced through stimulus projects will have to be finished in order for the federal money to be paid. Recently, Saskatchewan was granted an extension as they have had major floods that were preventing projects from being done. Consideration must be made for other parts of the country as well.
Halton Region was one of the first to respond to the crisis in Haiti after the earthquake. We had our EMS workers head down to help a colleague who was there. I was asked to sit on a task force that looks at what can be coordinated by a joint municipal response to international disasters.


We need to work with all orders of government to make sure that as record deficits are tackled they do not end up on our property taxes. Nor do we want to see a spike in taxes or that our most vulnerable citizens are not impacted.
The work is not done and some of the issues we discuss today may not seem important now. But, for us as leaders we need to learn from the mistakes of yesterday, and plan for our collective vision of the community of tomorrow.