Summoned to Ottawa by the Feds...
The meeting with the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance went very well. The panel session was from 9:00am to 10:30am with a five minute opening and then the rest of the time spent as a series of roundtable questions. Each panel session allowed for 6 witnesses but for our session there were only two of us....myself and the CEO of Greener Villages of Fredericton. The Conservatives, the Liberals, the Bloc and the NDP all had representation as committee members and they each had an opportunity to ask us questions.
Since we only had time for a 5 minute opening I focused my attention on housing and public health and safety as these, along with healthcare, seem to be the most pressing issues for Tantramar. The questions from the committee members stayed within these two topics and were digging into the finer details such as the link between the three orders of government. A super boiled down and condensed version of my responses really centered around the need for better communication between the three orders of government and direct and targeted funding from the Feds to communities.
Here are my opening remarks.....the session will be up on the committee website in the next two weeks:
"Good morning Mr. Chair and esteemed members of the standing committee on finance. My name is Andrew Black, and I am the mayor of the new municipality of Tantramar. I am also the President of the Union of Municipalities of New Brunswick and as such have a board seat with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. Mr. Chair, I want to thank everyone for the opportunity to be here today as a witness leading into the 2024 federal budget on behalf of my municipality and its constituents and municipalities across New Brunswick.
Mr. Chair, I am here today to speak about two topics in my opening remarks that have a direct impact on my municipality, but I want to make it clear that municipalities across New Brunswick and across the nation are just as impacted by these topics as Tantramar is. I know I have around 5 minutes Mr. Chair so I will be brief but the focus of my remarks are on housing and public health and safety.
I will start today, Mr. Chair, with the housing crisis that is affecting Canadians across the country and felt deeply here in the communities of New Brunswick. I was first elected to council just over 7 years ago and from a municipal perspective, we were not talking about housing. In the last three years that has changed significantly, with municipalities being on the front line of the housing crisis due to population increases over the Covid years, a downloading of responsibility on housing to the municipal sector and the fact that our constituents across the province are crying out for locally elected leaders to take action. Mr. Chair, it does not help the situation when two of the federal leaders voice opinions on housing, one saying: “it is not a primary responsibility of the federal government” and the other making comments that municipalities are gatekeepers to development. The absolute reality is that being responsible for housing in local government is unfamiliar territory for municipalities and the file is more complicated than it seems, with a cursory glance and a flippant comment doing nothing to understand that complexity. I will call out here today, Mr. Chair.......we....need....help. The Reaching Home program is an essential component of the federal government’s response strategy for chronic homelessness. This funding, including its dedicated rural and remote stream, should be scaled up and made permanent to address current needs and engage in preventative measures. The Rapid Housing Initiative is a groundbreaking direct transfer to municipalities and has the potential to make substantial change happen, but it needs to be made into a long-term program, with predictable funding beyond 2024, and ensuring that each RHI (Rapid Housing Initiative) unit has funding for wrap-around health and social supports and permanent operating funding to maintain affordability. The HAF is now open to municipalities which is most welcome but to support Canadians in search of rental options, the federal government needs to optimize and invest in critical National Housing Strategy programs such as the National Co-Investment Fund and the Rental Construction Financing Initiative to create more affordable rental supply. Mr. Chair, everyone needs a place to call home and having secure, safe, and appropriate housing is an anchor in addressing other needs such as mental health, addiction, and food security to many people in New Brunswick.
The second topic flows from the first and that is a new approach to safer and healthier communities. Municipalities, such as Tantramar, are the governments of proximity and are on the front lines of Canada’s unmet mental health needs, often providing essential services like social and community programming, supportive housing, community outreach, and substance and addictions support services. To add to the complexity of the issue, mental health challenges are often linked with the dual crises of addiction and homelessness – with municipal governments often needed to lead on community wellbeing. The lack of affordable and supportive housing, inadequate mental health care and the impacts of systemic racism on Indigenous people and racialized communities are contributing to the mental health and addictions issues manifesting in municipalities of all sizes. Mr. Chair, the federal government needs to develop a comprehensive national mental health strategy that addresses the interconnected issues of housing, homelessness, and substance abuse, while increasing mental health investments in communities with sustainable, long-term funding. Community safety is also deeply connected to how we police our communities. Municipalities in New Brunswick have complex and unique public safety needs, and local leaders understand those best. With crime on the rise in New Brunswick and the recent breakdown in communication of RCMP back-pay and negotiations, Mr. Chair, the federal government must meaningfully consult municipalities about decisions related to the future of RCMP contract policing.
I want to say one more thing as my closing remarks, Mr. Chair, and that is an urgent call to streamline and simplify federal funding applications for municipalities whether it is for housing, infrastructure, climate change or anything else. Many, particularly small municipalities, do not have the expertise nor capacity to even dream of applying for these much-needed streams and those processes could be torn apart and rewritten for adequate and fast-tracked approaches to funding opportunities.
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and committee members, once again for this opportunity."
I've told the Mayor to his face that a skatepark project is needed and overdue.. he is well aware of this but ignores its importance instead he prefers to attempt to climb the political ladder of fame and fortune by galavanting around the globe pretending to save everyone from everything... stay in your lane little fella... and if you think you're going to fix the manufactured 'housing crisis' think again.. you cannot possibly build enough housing fast enough to match the numbers of newcomers flooding into Canada.. so...
please wake up! Housing is NOT your department and neither is immigration.
The "immigration pipeline" is the only pipeline our governments want built.
Read the statistics for yourself:
Why would the Scout Leader and Town Councillor Josh Goguen need a Facebook page to privately gossip in Tantramar?
Doesn't seem very 'transparent' Josh..
at this link:
Honest men with ethics are tough to find here...
Meanwhile, the southern USA border is seeing incredible numbers of people from around the world who are flooding in illegally... in Biden's America - at this link:
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