big-city mayors eager to collaborate with Alberta on housing, transit poverty
原始发布日期： 2016-01-26 发布者：李方字变大 字变小
Rare meeting sees big-city mayors eager to collaborate with Alberta on housing, transit and poverty
EDMONTON, AB.-- Naheed Nenshi, Mayor of Calgary, Danielle Larivee Minister of Municipal Affairs and Minister of Service Alberta and Don Iveson Mayor of Edmonton speak to the media after meeting with cabinet to talk about city charters today at the Alberta Legislature in Edmonton. Greg Southam / Edmonton Journal Edmonton Mayor Don Iveson said there has been informal collaboration between municipalities and the province up to this point, but nothing at the level now broached with new legislation and powers for big cities. “There’s piecemeal collaboration, but getting something robust and formal around an approach to funding and building transit would be transformative, not just for Edmonton and Calgary, but ultimately for our regions and for our provinces,” Iveson said, speaking with Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi and Municipal Affairs Minister Danielle Larivee. “Likewise around housing, there have been fits and spurts of collaboration over time, but we know that building affordable housing, and particularly supportive housing for very high-needs individuals, will actually save us money on policing and save the province money on justice and health care.” The meeting steered clear of potentially funnelling more money into the four key areas in the short term, but instead explored giving more responsibilities to municipalities and changing borrowing options to save money in the long term, Iveson said. municipalities and the province could both borrow money for city projects, he suggested, since the province has a stronger balance sheet. Housing agencies could access the Alberta Capital Finance Authority to build projects, he said. Borrowing for real estate would help save health dollars, since some people are currently housed in hospital, and justice dollars, since homeless people can end up in conflict with the law and end up in jail. Iveson said neither Edmonton nor Calgary — 10 times larger than the next big Alberta cities — asked for additional taxation powers to help with the bottom line. “I think we all recognize that in this fiscal environment, talking about new taxes, is not a good sell,” he said. “What we need to focus on is how orders of government need to work together to make the dollars we’re entrusted with go further through collaboration.” New city charters giving more powers to Edmonton and Calgary are well on their way to being complete in the next 12 to 18 months. “Thinking about this as one province working together rather than municipalities out on their own, that’s the transformational relationship we’re seeing here through tangible collaboration on things like housing and transit,” Iveson said. jsinnema@edmontonjournal.com twitter.com/jodiesinnema (Calgary Herald) |