Canada - Mayors look for bigger slice

As federal surpluses grow, big-city mayors, including London's, are calling again for a bigger piece of Ottawa's pie.

The mayors say an amount equivalent to just one penny of the six-cents-per-buck the feds collect in Goods and Services Tax would generate another $5 billion a year for local roads, bridges and sewers.

London's annual share of that would be $30 million -- and would effectively double the city's spending on infrastructure, Mayor Anne Marie DeCicco-Best says.

Yesterday's lobby from Canada's 22 big-city mayors, in advance of next week's throne speech, is one they've made before.

What's different now is the $13.8-billion federal surplus, DeCicco-Best said.

"We have these large (federal) surpluses that keep getting larger and larger" while big-city roads are falling apart, she said.

The big-city mayors represent about 40 per cent of Canada's population.

Of course, cities aren't the only ones looking for cash in the throne speech, traditionally a time when the government lays out its mid-term map of priorities.

So why should the money go to cities instead of, say, to individual taxpayers who forked out the cash in the first place?

That's one option, DeCicco-Best conceded.

"But that doesn't absolve us of having to do the roadwork and roadworks are expensive."

If not through GST allocations, taxpayers will be on the hook through local property taxes and surcharges to expand over-worked sewers, repair crumbling roads and replace shaky bridges, she argued.

The mayors say most of Canada's municipal infrastructure is nearing the end of its service life and needs at least $100 billion to fix or maintain.

Without that, cities will be less economically attractive and less competitive, the mayors say.

Gord Steeves, president of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, said the FCM will launch a national campaign this fall to try to get the government's attention.