FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

APRIL 12, 2012

 

ATLANTIC MAYORS CALL ON FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TO COMMIT TO

COST-SHARED FUNDING PLAN FOR NEW WASTEWATER REGULATIONS

 

HALIFAX – Atlantic Mayors called today on the federal government to commit to a fully-funded, cost-shared funding plan to implement its new national wastewater regulations.

 

“The current cost estimate of more than $20 Billion over 30 years required to meet the new federal wastewater regulations is conservative and increasingly out-of-date,” said Summerside P.E.I. mayor Basil Stewart, chair of the Atlantic Mayors’ Congress (AMC.) “The federal government must update its national cost estimates as it finalizes the new regulations, and explain how its funding plan will protect both the environment and our municipal property tax payers.”

 

The mayors from Atlantic Canada's largest municipalities are in Halifax this week as part of their bi-annual AMC meeting, to discuss pressing issues facing their communities, including the new federal wastewater regulations.

 

Over the next three decades, the new federal regulations will require communities to rebuild or replace one out of every four wastewater treatment systems across the country. Hundreds of cities, towns and villages, many located in Atlantic Canada, will be affected. Among the municipalities requiring the most significant upgrades to their wastewater treatment systems are Halifax, Moncton and St. John’s.

 

“The federal government has taken an important step in the right direction by promising to work with all orders of government to develop a new, long-term infrastructure plan, and that plan must include a cost-shared funding strategy to implement the new regulations,” said Halifax mayor Peter Kelly.

 

Municipalities, who are responsible for more than 50% of Canada’s publicinfrastructure but collect just eight cents of every tax dollar, cannot meet the country’s infrastructure needs on their own. In the last few years, the federal government has worked with municipalities to begin investing in Canada’s aging infrastructure, and in 2011 the government committed to work with provinces, territories and municipalities to develop a new long-term infrastructure plan. The plan is to be in place before current federal infrastructure programs end in 2014.

 

The Atlantic Mayors’ Congress was formed in November of 2001. Thirty mayors from Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador meet twice a year to discuss common issues. Through this forum, mayors develop a unified voice from an Atlantic Canada perspective in bringing forward issues to the Federal and Provincial Governments.

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Contact:

 

Mayor Peter Kelly

Halifax Regional Municipality

902-490-4010