The Federation of Canadian Municipalities Advocacy days have come to an end.
To paraphrase Groucho Marx; “I wouldn’t want to join any organization that would have me as a member.” With this thought in mind I did at times feel like a fish out of water but soon realized that there were a few others that perhaps felt the same way. Not to say I wasn’t welcomed, I was. In fact it was a great opportunity to meet with many other municipal leaders, and FCM President Gloria Kovach is a terrific person.
The fact that so many municipalities both large and small are represented gave me hope that this organization can advance our interests and concerns. I’m not suggesting that they haven’t done so, especially since they have been around since 1901. I am only speculating from an anarchistic point of view that the smaller Canadian municipalities should have more autonomy and power, especially when it comes to raising revenue. The truth of course is that we are the bottom rung in a vertical power structure. I want this to change. Is FCM the correct vehicle for this change? I don’t know.
The key FCM messages put forward to M.P.s by our Northern Forum Group were the following (taken verbatim from our briefing notes):
- A fiscal imbalance exists when an order of government lacks the fiscal capacity to meet its responsibilities. Municipal governments today have responsibilities that far exceed the basic services to property that they were designed to provide;
- This fiscal imbalance affects not only urban centres, but also rural and northern communities that, with small and often shrinking populations, must try to make ends meet with limited economies of scale and rising service expectations;
- The Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs and Northern Development has committed to the establishment of a vision to guide economic, social, and environmental progress and implementation of this vision in order to restore fiscal balance in northern communities and build financially sound northern communities that offer a high quality of life for residents.
Of course it’s hard for the Yukon to complain about fiscal imbalance when compared to other populations of similar size. I think we can all agree that there is a huge fiscal imbalance between many municipalities within the Yukon. This is something I hope AYC will put on the front burner.
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I am glad your FCM meetings were productive but am curious about the reference to the “Northern Vision” forwarded by the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, which I understand would replace or subsume the Northern Strategy developed by the Martin administration.
I have yet to come across any public document providing indepth detail about the Northern Vision, or indicating that it will endeavour to restore fiscal balance in northern communities as an outcome. Could you advise where you found this reference?
This policy is not public yet. We are led to believe that there is a ‘Northern Vision’ strategy in the works and will be unveiled at some point in the future.