Regina mayor headed to Ottawa to meet with other big city mayors

Regina’s mayor is headed to Ottawa to meet up with his big city colleagues hoping to make an impact on the Trudeau Government before the federal budget is released.

Michael Fougere will be a part of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities’ (FCM) Big City Mayors’ Caucus (BCMC), which begins Friday.

The main issue expected to be discussed will be infrastructure, specifically Phase two of the government’s plans to dole out 81 billion dollars over 11 years in areas like transit, and green and social infrastructure.

The mayor feels as though funding will indeed be headed to the Queen City.

“I’m more confident now than I have been in the past that the federal government will do this. They’re committed to doing this and I don’t have an issue. My issue is that we have more projects then we’ll get funding for,” he said.

Fougere added they need to have their own house in order, in terms of having a list of projects the city is ready to move forward with, which he said they do have in place.

“We have the federal government’s ear. They’re listening to us… we’re in a good place,” he said in regards to infrastructure funding. “Could it be better? Absolutely it could be better but it’s a lot better than it was in the past. We have money flowing.”

This will be one of the final chances municipal leaders have in trying to shape the Liberal budget, with Fougere calling the meeting an important building block to lobby the feds in advance.

Other issues expected to come up between the mayors of Canada’s biggest cities are housing, including both affordable housing and homelessness, along with how to deal with a growing fentanyl crisis.