Mayor makes pitch for $180M

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This article was published 28/07/2017 (3004 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

MAYOR Brian Bowman used a 45-minute private meeting with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Friday to talk about roads and how the federal government can support cities.

Trudeau is in Winnipeg for two days, taking in the opening of the Canada Summer Games. He had been in Kenora, Ont., earlier Friday. He took in the opening ceremonies in Winnipeg in the evening.

Trudeau arrived at city hall with a heavy security detail and met Bowman in his office, where they exchanged greetings in front of the assembled news media for 90 seconds before having the closed-door session.

Trudeau and Bowman posed for photos at the start of their meeting, but the prime minister didn’t take questions from reporters.

“We spent much of the discussion speaking about the accelerated regional roads program and our desire to seek provincial support to tap into those funds and address the No. 1 priority of Winnipeggers, which is fixing the roads,” Bowman told reporters after Trudeau left city hall.

The city hopes to secure $180 million in federal funding to upgrade the city’s regional road network, but it needs the support of the provincial government, which hasn’t yet signed off on the request.

Outside city hall, about two dozen people — including civic staff — greeted Trudeau on his way into the building and took photographs.

Trudeau’s visit to city hall was the first by a prime minister since 1924, when Mackenzie King met Mayor Seymour Farmer.

Bowman said he and Trudeau talked about several issues other than the city’s potholed roads, including carbon tax, cannabis, reconciliation efforts with the Indigenous community, and the NAFTA renegotiations, but the focus was on roads and how Ottawa can work with municipalities.

“The prime minister has been very clear with me and the big city mayors that city-building is nation-building and the growing relevance of Winnipeg in the national discussions of nation-building is something that the prime minister recognizes,” Bowman said. “We had a discussion about the growing need for tools and the funds for cities to succeed.

“How we access programs, how we modernize, how we’re making infrastructure investments, on a whole host of issues, was absolutely part of the discussion.”

— Aldo Santin