WHEREAS most federal and provincial grant programs require from one-third to one-half matching funds in order to qualify for grant funding programs; AND WHEREAS many local governments are struggling with overwhelming infrastructure needs and lack of adequate revenue to address those needs, including the amount of money required to match funds to apply for these grants: THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that UBCM request the provincial and federal governments to provide other options for communities to take advantage of these grants including forgivable loans, the ability to pay the matching portion over a number of years, lower levels for matching i.e. one-tenth for smaller local governments, andor providing grants that do not require matching funding.
Ministry of Community, Sport Cultural Development The Province of British Columbia appreciates local governments concerns about overwhelming infrastructure needs and the challenge with finding adequate financing mechanism to maintain appropriate levels of service. The Province signed a renewed Gas Tax Agreement in May 2014, which will see 2.7 billion flow to local governments over the next 10 years. That is almost 3 times greater than the entire New Building Canada Fund allocation to BC. And under this agreement there is no requirement for matching funding, for either the direct allocation Community Works Fund or the pooled Strategic Priorities Fund. The Province and federal government are placing a strong emphasis the need to improve infrastructure asset management practices across the board. Defining appropriate levels of service, willingness to pay and identifying manageable taxation rates and fees are critical to achieving financial sustainability. The infrastructure deficit is so large that we have to take an incremental approach, addressing critical pieces one at a time. It is important to implement sound asset management practices that consider life-cycle costs including future capital replacement costs. Even if we addressed all of the infrastructure needs today, without sound management practices in place we will simply be faced with the same problem in a few years to come.
Minister of Infrastructure, Communities Intergovernmental Affairs I am very proud that our Government has delivered a New Building Canada Plan NBCP to help finance the construction, rehabilitation and enhancement of infrastructure across Canada. The Plan includes over 53 billion for provincial, territorial and municipal infrastructure over 10 years of which 33.2 billion will be exclusively allocated towards municipal infrastructure, an amount corresponding to close to 70 percent of the total funding available. This includes 1 billion in funding for municipalities under 100,000 residents through the Small Communities Fund, almost 22 billion that all municipalities will receive through the indexed federal Gas Tax Fund GTF over the next decade and 10.4 billion available to municipalities under the Goods and Services Tax Rebate. Under the new GTF, the number of project categories has been expanded from 7 to 18. The new categories allow municipalities to use the renewed GTF towards a wider range of projects, which means they will have even more flexibility in the types of projects they fund. Our Government recognizes that municipalities are best placed to determine their own local infrastructure needs. Given there are three levels of government and the private sector who can contribute to infrastructure projects, our Government will continue to do its part by providing up to one-third of the funding for most projects.