REGINA — Mayor Chad Bachynski voiced optimism that the recent lobbying by Saskatchewan municipal officials in Ottawa was well received by federal officials.
Bachynski was among several mayors from Saskatchewan who went as a delegation to Ottawa last week to lobby federal officials including cabinet ministers, MPs, senators and others for cost-shared infrastructure funding.
In speaking to reporters at Regina City Hall on Wednesday, Bachynski said the delegation presented a proposal to the federal government for how to cost‑share between the municipal, provincial and federal governments.
“Essentially, we went to the table as municipalities and the province together, basically offering up two‑thirds of the funding required to fund infrastructure projects throughout the province, including those right here in Regina, including things like our lift stations and our water projects that we have, so that core infrastructure on our side,” said Bachynski.
The trip included Minister of Government Relations Eric Schmalz and Minister of Advanced Education Ken Cheveldayoff, as well as representatives from seven Saskatchewan cities and from the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities and the Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association.
Mayor Bachynski said they were “advocating for no‑strings‑attached funding as best we can, because every municipality has different needs. It was two days where we met with a number of ministers and ministerial departments and staffers to advocate and show our willingness to make that commitment and it was received very well.”
Bachynski said they “heard loud and clear that this approach from the province combined with municipalities, they haven’t seen before. They’ve had one‑off conversations with provinces and municipalities. This is the first time that they’ve seen a province come with mayors from their province together and advocate together with joint funding on the table and really contributing our part, which is more than half. So I would say it was successful and we had a lot of great feedback in terms of a willingness to look at what we had on the table.”
The lobbying effort in Ottawa was prompted by longstanding concerns in Saskatchewan from the province and municipalities about the future of the Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program, which municipalities took full advantage of while it has been running for various projects in the province.
The concern, said Bachynski, is that ICIP funding is fully subscribed and there’s no indication of what the successor of that program will be.
“And so that was a big part of the message, just to say we’re looking for the successor. Ideally, an ICIP program that has more flexibility to it is really what we’re looking for, so each municipality could apply it in the way that they need to apply it.”
Mayor Bachynski said that from Regina’s perspective they are “really looking for that core infrastructure funding, and my message to the federal government was we can tie this to your objectives. The federal government wants to build homes faster than they have before. They want to enable trade‑enabling infrastructure or build trade‑enabling infrastructure, and so tying the projects that we have right here in Regina to those objectives was what I was advocating.”
Bachynski said the biggest projects he was advocating for, to align with the federal government’s objectives, were for core infrastructure funding. “So water and wastewater projects where it would enable housing development,” he said.
Bachynski said that infrastructure “unlocks our ability to do infill development as well as greenfield development, which obviously helps us accelerate the building of homes and accelerate the development of neighbourhoods which ultimately leads to their objective which is to increase the capacity of our housing in the country.”
“So that was one component. Also in the same breath when we have commercial entities, when we increase that water and wastewater capacity, we also hit the mark in terms of trade‑enabling infrastructure because if we allow businesses to grow around our community, that also hits that objective. So I was really trying to highlight that we can connect directly the work that we are looking to do here in Regina to the goals of the federal government.”
As for how much of an impact it would be to hinder Regina’s ability to further those types of projects if the federal government doesn’t produce a successor to ICIP, Bachynski said all it does is “cap our growth rate because we can only do so much work with the funding that we have.”
“So we know we have around a three‑quarter of a billion‑dollar infrastructure deficit. Any amount of funding that we get from either the province or the federal government, that accelerates that roadmap to grow our city. So really it’s, you know, we have a plan in place. What this does or what this
