I attended the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) Conference and Trade show 2013 in Vancouver May 31-June 3. The central message from the conference was the success the FCM have enjoyed in negotiating the new Building Canada Plan directly with the federal government in Ottawa.
As part of the Building Canada Plan, The Gas Tax Fund ($21.8
billion) will become a permanent fixture for municipalities. The fund will be
indexed and cover a broader range of infrastructure projects than before. There
will be an incremental GST rebate for municipalities ($10.4billion).There will
also be a new Building Canada Fund in 2014. Thank you Mr. Harper.
Discussion about the rising cost of local government was
non-existent at the conference. At the
standing committee forum on social economic development a question “Who is
going to have to pay for all these social programs” was quickly dismissed as
inappropriate and the questioner was referred to the standing committee on
Municipal Finance and Intergovernmental Municipal Arrangements (MF&IMA).
I also attended the MF&IMA forum where the main focus is
on getting more money from senior levels of government, and not cutting back municipal
expenses.
I attended a workshop on innovative infrastructure: Building
Asset Management Capacity in Rural Communities and a forum on Rural
Communities. Both provided useful information applicable to issues here in Golden.
Building Asset
management capacity in rural communities was a workshop particularly pertinent
to Golden. Don Barry, Associate Partner Asset Management Solutions for IBM
Canada teaches an 8 day course in asset management at the University of Toronto
and gave a cursory outline of his course.
Darren Elder, CAO for the Rural Municipality of Wilton gave
a presentation on his experience using the NAMS program, the same program
Golden is using. I talked with Darren and Glen Dow, the Reeve of Wilton after
the workshop about their experience with NAMS. They both endorsed the program
but were emphatic that the best approach was to address one set of assets at a
time. For example do complete analyses on water utilities. When we are
confident with the complete picture on water utilities move onto the next asset
group; sewer for example. They felt trying to process all assets at once was not
the best approach.
Nicole Goodman, PhD from the Munk School of Global Affairs
gave an insightful presentation on the current status of internet voting in
Canada. Internet voting is already being used in many municipalities and it is
certainly the way of the future. BC has yet to follow the other provinces and
approve internet voting; however internet voting is currently being studied by
a provincial panel in BC. We may have the ability to offer an internet option
to the electorate as early as the 2014 municipal elections.
The opinions expressed in this blog are my personal opinions and may not represent the opinions of other councillors nor the opinions of council.
