Housing, sewage plant funds ballot box issues for councillors ‘We won’t be doing anything unless we can flush our toilets’ By: Nicole Buffie Posted: 6:52 PM CDT Monday, Mar. 31, 2025 Last Modified: 8:27 PM CDT Monday, Mar. 31, 2025 Updates

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City councillors are warning infrastructure critical to the expansion of Winnipeg is hanging in the balance as Canadians prepare to head to the polls.

Funding to accelerate housing and upgrade a massive city sewage treatment plant are ballot box issues for several Winnipeg councillors.

“This is operation critical,” Coun. Sherri Rollins said Monday.

In its fall economic statement, the federal government promised the city $150 million over four years under the Canada Housing Infrastructure Fund for the $3-billion north end sewage treatment plant, but the cash is performance-based and contingent on housing built in the city.

“We can’t build homes if we have nothing to hook them up to,” Rollins (Fort Rouge-East Fort Garry) said. “This isn’t a chicken or the egg situation. This is a horse and the cart. One thing absolutely comes before the other.”

Coun. Janice Lukes seconded the need for sewage plant money.

“We won’t be doing anything unless we can flush our toilets,” she said Monday.

Last week, council voted to approve a hefty hike to the typical home’s sewer rate of $18.67 per month, which will add up to $168.03 for the rest of 2025.

Mayor Scott Gillingham said the one-year increase is less than what city staff recommended and delaying future sewer rate hikes will give the city more time to secure funding for the plant’s upgrades.

The sewage plant would also see funds from the Canada Housing Accelerator Fund, but Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre vowed to scrap the program, should his party form government after the April 28 election.

Coun. Evan Duncan said the Tories need to say where other funding would come from to finance the plant.

“That needs to be clearly communicated to Winnipeggers, because right now it’s housing accelerator fund on (the Liberal party) side and nothing on the other,” Duncan (Charleswood-Tuxedo-Westwood) said.

In 2023, the feds committed up to $122.4 million in to build 3,166 net new housing units, including 931 affordable units.

Meeting that target would help continue the flow of Canada Housing Infrastructure Fund cash for the sewage plant project.

Over the weekend, Liberal Leader Mark Carney said his government would double Canada’s rate of residential housing construction over the next decade to nearly 500,000 new homes per year, addressing the nation’s housing shortage.

Carney also said a Liberal government would propose to lower the cost of home building by cutting municipal development charges, facilitating the conversion of existing structures and building on the housing accelerator fund.

Rollins is attracted to Carney’s plan for housing, which she says builds on her desire for the federal government to leverage private sector funding to build homes.

Lukes (Waverley West) pointed to more infill development, which would address housing availability. She said if Ottawa sets aside funding for upgrades to neighbourhood amenities where housing is built, the areas would be more attractive to build in and keep existing residents happy.

Aside from the need for the north end plant’s upgrades to be done before housing can be built, Lukes agrees with the current government’s approach of performance-based funding.

“Cities can come up with every reason under the sun, every policy, red tape, bylaws to slow processes down,” she said, “We need to remove that and do a better job of infill development.”

Meantime, Coun. Brian Mayes criticized the federal government’s overreach in local zoning and planning and would like to see a hands-off approach.

Mayes (St. Vital) said the federal government shouldn’t have a say in what the housing priorities of his constituency should be.

“They have no connection with this community. I have found the Liberal approach very frustrating,” he said.

Elsewhere on his wish list, Duncan said he wants to see crime addressed on a national level, including bail reform and changes to the Criminal Code to crack down on repeat offenders.

“The feds should really be making that a priority,” he said. “They’re the folks that make the Criminal Code of Canada and the Youth Criminal Justice Act.”

Rollins called the issue an inter-governmental affair and said all three levels of government need to continue the public safety conversation,

She also wants to see immigration reform so prospective residents don’t rely on programs like the provincial nominee program as a pathway.

Lukes agreed, saying she wasn’t impressed with the federal government’s handling of international students.

In 2024, immigration minister Marc Miller announced a cap on international student permit applications. The cap was expected to result in approximately 360,000 approved study permits, a decrease of 35 per cent from 2023.

“Manitoba can handle more international students,” Lukes said. “But the feds did a ‘one size fits all’ approach and now Manitoba is being negatively impacted. We have student (apartments) that are half full that can accommodate.”

— with files from The Canadian Press

nicole.buffie@freepress.mb.ca

Nicole Buffie
Multimedia producer

Nicole Buffie is a reporter for the Free Press city desk. Born and bred in Winnipeg, Nicole graduated from Red River College’s Creative Communications program in 2020 and worked as a reporter throughout Manitoba before joining the Free Press newsroom as a multimedia producer in 2023. Read more about Nicole.

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