Paradise councillor wants feds, Province to pony up
By Mark Squibb
Paradise councillor Larry Vaters says municipalities need more funding from higher levels of government to meet growing housing and infrastructure demands.
Following his presentation of Budget 2025, Vaters noted people across the country are concerned about housing affordability and aging infrastructure.
Vaters said inadequate funding from the provincial and federal governments acts as a roadblock to addressing these concerns.
“The fact is, there needs to be a fair and more equitable share of existing tax dollars collected by other levels of government,” said Vaters. “Municipalities across our country are responsible for more than 60 precent of infrastructure and are the level of government closest to our residents. However, we are trying to deliver programs and services, and build and maintain infrastructure, that is based on a 19th century revenue framework that was never designed for the realities of the 21st century. On average across the country, the cost of municipal infrastructure required to support new housing is in the range of $107,000 per home. Suffice to say, we need other levels of government to make significant increases and sustainable investments into infrastructure.”
Vaters said if given more funds, towns would have more to offer their residents.
The $107,000 per home figure was calculated by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM), of which Vaters is a member of the Board of Directors. In November, the FCM put out a plea to the federal government to convene provincial, territorial and municipal leaders to discuss a new framework to better benefit municipalities.
“Municipal infrastructure is a prerequisite to building more housing,” noted Scott Pearce, Mayor of Gore, Quebec and President of FCM, in the November press release. “We cannot build new housing without putting in place the municipal water, wastewater, transportation and community infrastructure that provides the critical foundation for Canadians’ quality of life.”
As per the FCM, The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) estimates that 5.8 million housing units must be built by 2030 to restore affordability to 2004 levels — 3.5 million above the 2.3 million units projected based on recent construction rates. Under current funding regulations, municipalities will shoulder a burden of $600 billion to accommodate those new builds.
Vaters, meanwhile, noted that Paradise balanced its budget — municipalities are required to, provincial governments and the federal governments are not — despite not having access to sustainable funding streams.