Duane Hicks
Ten communities in Rainy River District will receive more than $3.2 million in predictable, formula-based funding over the next three years to invest in critical local infrastructure projects.
Municipal Affairs minister Bill Mauro, also the MPP for Thunder Bay-Atikokan, announced Monday morning at the Civic Centre here several different ways the province is responding to financial challenges faced by northern municipalities.
“I don’t think that, as a government, we’ve done a very good job of letting people know and reminding people, certainly in a public narrative, about the programs that we’ve put in place over the years to try and help people and communities, especially those in the north, be as sustainable as they can be,” he said.
For starters, the Ontario Community Infrastructure Fund (OCIF), which originally was a $100-million program, is increasing to a total of $300 million that will peak in 2018-19.
Some $200 million of that will be “predictable money” distributed to communities according to a formula while the other $100 million will be application-based.
The OCIF program also has been changed so money received can be “stacked” for up to five years, meaning municipalities do not have to spend it in the year they receive it.
For Fort Frances, the province will provide up to $299,229 in 2017, increasing to $422,227 in 2108 and $634,617 by 2019, through the OCIF.
This total of more than $1.3 million is money the town can count on and budget accordingly.
“I don’t think we’ll have much trouble spending that money or saving it for a bigger project down the line,” noted Mayor Roy Avis.
“Funding through the OCIF program will help us to continue to repair and revitalize critical infrastructure that will help our community to grow and prosper,” he added.
Mauro noted the province also has worked hard to allow smaller, northern municipalities to participate in federal infrastructure funding programs.
For example, all municipalities across the north can participate in the federal Clean Water and Wastewater Fund (CWWF).
Mauro said the first component of Phase 1 of the new $120-billion federal infrastructure program was the public transit component, which included $1.48 billion for Ontario municipalities.
The problem was this money is meant to go to municipalities with public transit systems and allocated based on a federal ridership formula.
But many northern municipalities do not have public transit systems and thus are not eligible for any of that $1.48 billion.
So what the Ministry of Municipal Affairs did on behalf of smaller municipalities was to work on the second component of Phase 1, which was the CWWF.
The CWWF is a $570-million fund over two years (2015 and 2016) flowing from Ottawa to municipalities
CWWF originally was announced as a 50 percent federal/50 percent municipal funding program.
“After seeing the way that the transit money rolled out, I worked with [Infrastructure minister Bob] Chiarelli to try, as best we were able, work on the CWWF so that municipalities, especially northern municipalities, could tap into this fund, especially seeing that many of them did not receive much money, if any money, from the transit program that was announced,” noted Mauro.
“My point was many municipalities would not have been able to afford 50 percent of that federal program; there was no provincial involvement.”
So what the Ministry of Municipal Affairs did was two things:
•it allowed the aforementioned OCIF money to count toward the municipal portion of an application for CWWF funding; and
•it brought 25 percent new provincial funding forward so that successful applicants to CWWF would see the province pay for up to half of the municipality’s share of the project.
Thus, a successful project would be paid for 50 percent by the federal government, 25 percent by the province, and 25 percent by the municipality.
If the municipality has OCIF money already, it can use that toward its share and pay less than 25 percent.
On top of the OCIF and CWWF, Mauro also noted that since the Liberal government came to power in 2003, it has provided four times the assistance to municipalities than the previous government due to two major programs—the Ontario Municipal Partnership Fund and provincial uploads.
The OMPF and provincial uploads combined now total $3.8 billion, up from $1.1 billion in 2003.
Mauro noted Fort Frances gets 17 percent of its municipal revenue base from these two programs alone.
In the $505-million OMPF program, meant to help municipalities offset operating costs, 90 percent of the money goes to northern municipalities.
“We’re doing our best to help you with the challenges that you face,” Mauro stressed during Monday morning’s announcement.
“It’s similar across the north,” he noted. “We’ve seen this happen in forestry across many of our northern communities.
“We see what’s happening with reassessment, and so we have taken significant steps already that we hope you have found are helping you with your particular circumstances in some way,” he added.
Mayor Avis extended his thanks to Premier Kathleen Wynne and the Liberal government, as well as Mauro specifically, whom he said is “one of the most dedicated individuals that I’ve seen.”
Mayor Avis also presented Mauro with a framed print by local artist Cher Pruys.
