Big-city mayors say they want a seat at the table on federal housing cash, and are willing to team up with the Ford government to get there.
Premier Doug Ford and Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Paul Calandra spoke this week to local leaders to try to get them onside with a "Team Ontario" approach to the federal government's promised $5 billion in funding for homebuilding infrastructure. Ottawa has said provinces will have to accept its strings, including mandating four-unit zoning provincewide, to get their share of the cash. If not, the money will flow straight to the municipalities.
Ford has said he's unwilling to bend on fourplexes. But his government still thinks it can get its hands on the federal money by negotiating alongside municipalities.
"We want to take a Team Ontario approach that recognizes the critical role municipalities play in building homes and that gets as many homes built as possible," Ford said in his address to the Ontario Big City Mayors (OBCM) caucus on Thursday. "You know your communities best. We want and need you at the table."
It appears to have worked.
OBCM Chair and Burlington Mayor Marianne Meed Ward said she and her colleagues would prefer funding come directly to municipalities with no strings — but that they also want to be at the negotiating table. A Team Ontario approach offers them that, she said.
"We want our voice to be heard," Meed Ward said, adding that recent federal and provincial funding announcements show municipalities are being taken more seriously. "And so we will sit at any table that we are invited to sit at. And we'll do our very best to advocate that the two of them come together to get a deal. If they can't, we will for sure work with either party, individually or collectively."
The talks will also provide an opportunity for municipalities to push for higher levels of government to take on a bigger share of costs for shared jurisdictional issues, Meed Ward said. After the Ford government announced "new deals" with the cities of Toronto and Ottawa that saw Ontario upload costly highways, local leaders have sensed an opening.
"We need to sit down with all of our partners at both the federal and the provincial level and understand why there are challenges on cost-shared programs," she said. "We'll take anybody's money. We'll take it directly or working in partnership."
Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) President and Milton councillor Colin Best also signalled his organization's willingness to hop on board, saying AMO "welcomes" the team-based approach.
Premiers across Canada also released a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday, in part asking him not to bypass them on housing funding.
Provincial governments "need to have a key role in the development and execution of federal housing programs: the issue cannot be solved by the federal government and municipalities acting without the meaningful involvement and support of [provinces and territories]," it reads.
Though federal Housing Minister Sean Fraser has said provinces won't get the funding without complying with the strings, his spokesperson said the feds are willing to negotiate on a case-by-case basis.
"No one can tackle the housing crisis alone. To that end, we’re happy to see Ontario looking to work with municipalities to make the most of the infrastructure funding we have put on the table to help do so," Micaal Ahmed said in a statement on Friday.
"We’re very clear that the money from this new fund will go to municipalities and provinces who will make it easier to build all types of homes around the areas Ontarians need it most, such as transit. In the near future, as we work on distributing the funds, we will assess each proposal for its ambitiousness and negotiate with Ontario on their share."
