Give Cities Power to Make Sustainable Change

Mike Harcourt, Advisory Board Member, Centre for Civic Governance: Canada could become known as the country that got its cities and communities right first.

Our cities and communities may be on their way to becoming the most sustainable in the world - but we are facing significant choices. It is all about where we focus our attention and where we spend our resources.

Over the last few years, under both the Liberals and Conservatives, municipalities have received billions of dollars to repair, replace and add to sewer and water systems, transit and other infrastructure, after years of pleading by municipal politicians like myself and others from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM).

Prime Minister Chrétien started the municipal infrastructure programs in 1994. From 1994 to 2004, $12-billion was invested by the national government. This triggered a $30-billion total for federal, provincial and municipal infrastructure investments, like Vancouver's Annacis Island sewage treatment facility and the $1.9 billion Canada Line.

At the request of the FCM, then led by Jack Layton, Prime Minister Martin in 2004/05 started the "New Deal for Cities and Communities." The 2004/05 budget eliminated the GST on municipal infrastructure - $700 million per year - plus provided at least $1.2 billion per year for municipal infrastructure.

Furthermore, the 2005 budget met the FCM's request for five cents equivalent of the gas tax. In 2005/06, federal/provincial/municipal gas tax agreements were signed with all the provinces and territories. These agreements provide a long term framework for a new bottom up governance in Canada - based on sustainability principles, a more coordinated and cooperative integrated federal, provincial and municipal relationship, and long-term integrated comprehensive sustainability plans for Canada's cities and communities.

In June 2006 Prime Minister Harper received the report From Restless Communities to Resilient Places. I chaired this 15-person external advisory committee of Canadians from all regions, diverse backgrounds and experiences.

Our report reinforced three themes we gleaned from our research and meetings with hundreds of mayors and councilors, cities and communities experts, and citizens. These themes became three recommendations:

Recommendation 1: Place Matters
"The committee therefore recommends that all governments in Canada adopt a place-based approach to policy-making, which will allow them to foster better capacities to understand, develop and manage Canada's places for the future. Specifically, the committee recommends that the leadership role of the federal government be one of facilitation and partnership with other orders of government and civil society, to deliver locally appropriate solutions to issues of national consequence playing out at a local level."

Recommendation 2: Double Devolution
"The committee therefore recommends a double devolution, shifting responsibilities and resources from the federal government to the provincial and territorial governments, and then from the provincial and territorial governments to the local level; the double devolution should ensure that choices about how to raise and use resources, including tax choices, move to the most appropriate local levels, where accountability to citizens is most direct."

Recommendation 3: Four Dimensions of Sustainability
"The committee therefore recommends that all governments work together to assist communities in developing integrated and sustainable strategies by providing capacity-building measures for community leaders and sharing best practices among diverse communities, and that all orders of governments should harmonize their policies and programs to support community efforts to pursue
their own long-term visions for their own future."

The four dimensions of sustainability include a prosperous economy, healthy environment, social inclusion and a Canadian culture vibrant with creativity and innovation.

Our report was received by Prime Minister Harper and Transport, Infrastructure and Communities Minister Lawrence Cannon. Minister Cannon used it to consult with his provincial counterparts and municipal leaders. Over the summer and fall of 2006, Minister Cannon prepared budget 2007/08 recommendations on the fiscal balance, particularly the municipal pleas to deal with their $60-100 billion dollars infrastructure deficit and their lack of jurisdiction and fiscal resources beyond the property tax.

This past March, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty's budget provided $33 billion over the next seven years for infrastructure funding, as one of the major initiatives to restore fiscal balance.

So that is good the news.

Our national government's challenge now is to work out its role in a new intergovernmental relationship with provinces, respecting provincial jurisdiction over municipal organizations and our places - the nine big cities, the 110 mid-sized cities and the thousands of small, rural, remote and aboriginal communities.

To do so we need to direct even more resources to cities.

I am calling on the federal and provincial governments to redirect the equivalent of one per cent of GST and one per cent of PST to their cities and communities. As well, the senior levels of government need to take back responsibility for social services and education. Relieving the cities of these burdens would free them to devote their energy and resources to infrastructure and other civic matters.

In the next two to three years, we Canadians could become known as the country that got its cities and communities sustainable first by creating a new form of place-based intergovernmental cooperative and coordinated planning. We can position Canada well for the 21st urban century, where Canada's cities compete with other country's cities for knowledge-based service and skilled entrepreneurs, innovators, workers and inventors - the creative class.

We are blessed in Canada with not only abundant natural resources, and fine rural communities, but also excellent large- and mid-sized cities. Our goal should be to make them sustainable.

The key tasks are to complete negotiations between the national, provincial and municipal governments for a place-based, double devolution, and roll out the fiscal balance funding in a way that not only eliminates the municipal infrastructure deficit, but also devolves, on a permanent basis, fiscal and jurisdictional capacity to our cities and communities.

Vancouver's particular challenge, as the cities and communities agenda progresses over the next few years, is to shift from being one of the most liveable cities to the most sustainable.

As Ken Cameron, Sean Rossiter and I point out in our recent book, City Making in Paradise, Vancouver faces many challenges - homelessness, congestion, high energy consumption and climate change challenges.