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Governments ignoring infrastructure needs

Re: Mayors united in opposition to downloading, May 26.

To the Editor,

Re: Mayors united in opposition to downloading, May 26.

I was particularly interested in the story of the inaugural meeting the B.C. Mayors’ Caucus held recently in Penticton where they came out in opposition to downloading costs onto municipal governments along with other issues.

I applaud Mayor John Ruttan’s comments that the provincial government’s response it has no budget to deal with some issues “... is not acceptable.”

This whole area of funding for replacement and upgrading of our national, provincial and municipal infrastructure is one of the biggest challenges we face in Canada.

More than a decade ago the Canadian Federation of Municipalities called for funds in the hundreds of millions of dollars to start on an aggressive program to restore our infrastructure – roads, bridges, water and sewer systems, hospitals, schools and other works.

Federal and provincial governments have paid lip service to do this work, but always cite lack of money.

CBC Radio recently reported the president of FCM calling for action to protect federal programs that do provide some funds for this work, albeit an inadequate amount.

Without action, our infrastructure system in this country will simply collapse at a huge cost to the economy, jobs and safety for Canadians.

The Globe and Mail in the last few days has had extensive coverage of plans for mega-energy projects that will create environmental difficulties to complete and will generate taxes at both the federal and provincial level.

Every adult Canadian needs to call on their MPs and MLAs and provincial and federal government to take action  and start to allocate tax dollars in this area.

We are over-taxed and under serviced.

Nelson Allen

Nanaimo