We should be talking cities this federal election

I write a monthly column in the Calgary Herald. In the midst of our federal election, here's the full text of my April article:

Two weeks ago, I was at a luncheon with many Latin American delegates to the Inter-American Development Bank annual meeting when I got a text that the government had fallen.

A number of the delegates were surprised at how calm the Canadians were in this situation. Some wondered if the rest of the conference would have to be cancelled. This made me think of just how lucky we all are to live in a country where we can express our opinions, where we can choose our leaders, and how this must not be taken for granted.

An election, as we in Calgary learned last fall, is a marvellous chance to share ideas and contrast competing visions.

However, it can also be an alienating experience full of bitter partisanship and caricature and of boiling things down to the lowest common denominator.

It's easy to blame the politicians for this; we are, after all, the ones who make the angry speeches and approve the negative attack ads - which are effective, by the way, not because they get people to vote for your candidate, but because they convince those who like the other candidate to stay home; they're ads cynically designed to suppress voter turnout.

But all of us, as citizens, must also play our part and demand real discussion on what matters.

At the onset of this election, I hoped that the parties and the leaders would really engage on topics that matter to the 80 per cent of Canadians who live in cities: tax fairness, infrastructure, transportation, housing and emergency services.

So far, I've been pretty disappointed.

Each of the major party platforms only superficially addresses the issues that cities face. The one exception is the Green party, which suggests creating a series of municipal "superfunds" focused on issues like transit, cycling promotion and community facilities.

Of the other parties, I give credit to the Liberals for a significant commitment to affordable housing. However, they mention vital infrastructure and transportation issues only insofar as to suggest we need a plan (shouldn't they have developed one as part of their platform?), and there is no commitment to any actual funding. Indeed, one of their promises - to phase out P3 Canada - could deprive Calgary of up to $100 million in funding for our proposed recreation centres if the funding is not replaced or grandfathered.

The NDP platform suggests we need a national transit strategy (we do), and proposes allocating another penny of the gas tax to cities for transit as well as a tax benefit for employer-provided transit passes. They also provide some aid to police officers and firefighters. However, although they discuss infrastructure and affordable housing, the amount of money they are setting aside is quite modest compared to the needs.

The Conservatives have an entire section on cities, towns and rural communities in their platform, but nearly all of it is focused on rural areas. With the exception of one odd promise -$10 million to put defibrillators in every hockey arena -there's nothing new here for cities. There is a rehash of budget promises on volunteer firefighters and the gas tax, and a promise to make a plan for future infrastructure funds, but their budgets for 2014-15 and 2015-16 show no money for this.

While the Conservative government, and the Paul Martin Liberal government preceding it, made significant first steps toward addressing the needs of cities, no party today, it seems, really sees cities as a priority.

The case of one Conservative MP, Deepak Obhrai of Calgary East, in speaking of the airport underpass, showed just how out of touch some federal politicians are when thinking about cities. It's OK to oppose the underpass when you're informed about the facts. It's not OK for leaders to make public pronouncements that show they don't really understand the issue.

Obhrai suggested we don't need the underpass - we just need to do a number of road improvements that would, in fact, cost much more than the entire budget for the Airport Trail underpass, including adding a lane or two to Deerfoot Trail - a road controlled by the province and not the city. (It goes without saying that he's also not offering any funding for any of his ideas).

We need federal leaders who understand the true scope, scale and cost of major municipal projects. What's unfortunate is that, when my office offered Obhrai a briefing on the actual costs involved in what he was suggesting, he flat out refused.

The facts are that municipalities in Canada face an infrastructure deficit of at least $125 billion. In Calgary alone, that deficit is at least $6 billion, including new construction and maintenance of fire halls, libraries, rec centres, roads, interchanges and transit projects. It's almost impossible to imagine how cities, with our limited sources of revenue, can close that gap on our own. Property taxes and user fees simply can't do it.

Our confederation is set up such that municipalities have limited power and must rely on other levels of government for funding of major infrastructure. In every other industrialized country, the national or federal level of government plays a major role in the development of their cities. In Canada, no federal party is taking the needs of cities seriously.

That's why we need a new deal--a new urban agenda.

Last week, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities released its election platform, highlighting the need for concerted national effort in three major areas: aggressively reducing gridlock and commute times (including significant investment in public transit), eliminating homelessness and building affordable housing, and securing public safety through supporting front line emergency personnel.

In the weeks leading up to election day, I will be pressing the parties and leaders to tell us where they stand on these issues, and I encourage all Canadians to do the same.

Let's not take our democracy for granted.

- Mayor Nenshi