Candidates agree on need, not solution

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This article was published 18/08/2011 (5487 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

While municipal, business and community representatives certainly gave them plenty to chew on, provincial election candidates in Brandon East and Brandon West didn’t reciprocate with much food for thought during a roundtable discussion Wednesday afternoon.

The closed door panel discussion, hosted by the Association of Manitoba Municipalities at Brandon’s Victoria Inn — and attended by representatives from the city, public and business realms — was part of the AMM’s continuing lobby campaign to see infrastructure as a top priority in the upcoming provincial election.

As part of the campaign, the association is pushing whichever political party forms government on Oct. 4 to commit to setting aside one per cent of the current provincial sales tax, above and beyond what is already given to municipalities, in a dedicated fund to deal with Manitoba’s approximately $11-billion municipal infrastructure deficit.

While all candidates agreed that there is an immediate need for additional cash to deal with the province’s growing sewer, water, road and social infrastructure needs, only the Liberal candidates committed to a dedicated percentage of the PST.

"We support the one per cent model and also support sitting down with municipalities to discuss other funding issues," George Buri, the Liberal candidate in Brandon West, told the closed-door crowd of about three dozen invited guests. "We will be going beyond that one per cent, but I can’t announce that yet. That will be part of our platform and I think that when it is announced, it will be millions of dollars and people will be very happy with it."

"It is about having the long-term predictable programs and having the research and development put into those predictable programs," added Brandon East Liberal candidate Shaun Cameron. "We’re talking about better ways to build highways that are longer lasting and are going to carry through a longer time, in a time when we are short on money."

Brandon West PC candidate Reg Helwer did not specifically endorse or rebuke the AMM’s request, instead suggesting that its PST proposal would be better received by a Tory government if matched with a solution.

"There’s only one taxpayer … if you come with a solution as well as a demand, you’re going to get a lot further ahead," Helwer said. "Solutions go a long way, not just the demands on the infrastructure."

Brandon West NDP candidate Jim Murray also chose not to speak directly to the AMM’s request, but did point to the current NDP government’s "generous" revenue-sharing with municipalities.

"There’s no quick and easy fix to this … this government has no plan to tax or cut its way out of this infrastructure deficit," he said. "This government has worked more closely with municipalities and communities than any other previous government has and the packages that they’ve put out are amongst the most generous in the country."

Brandon East incumbent NDP MLA Drew Caldwell is out of town this week on personal matters and did not attend yesterday’s meeting.

Another topic which dominated the candidates’s comments was the renewed calls by many for the twinning of the deadly stretch of Highway 10 running north of Brandon to the Riding Mountain National Park.

The busy highway just south of Erickson claimed the lives of Brandon teens Kayleigh Brugger and Paul Tschuschba on June 30.

Helwer said a recent door-knocking jaunt took him to Brugger’s neighbourhood.

"Up and down that row of houses, the one thing I heard is, ‘When you’re elected, you have to fix that highway. This was horrible. This can’t happen again’," he said. "Those are the types of things you deal with and those are the types of things I’m hearing at the door."

Buri echoed his PC competitor’s comments, calling Highway 10 North a "main priority that has to be twinned."

While Murray did not directly speak to the June 30 accident during yesterday’s roundtable discussion, a letter to the editor from him appearing in today’s paper reiterated the Selinger government’s commitment to adding new passing lanes on Highway 10 north of the city and to make the road "a safer drive for Manitoba motorists."

Candidates comments were otherwise tempered during yesterday’s roundtable, with the lion’s share of the nearly two-hour conversation monopolized by panellists and the AMM executive.

"I’m a firm believer that a healthy Brandon from an infrastructure perspective is a healthy region," Brandon East Conservative candidate Mike Waddell stated in his very brief comments to the group. "We are a hub and if Brandon is healthy, then the region is healthy, and if region is healthy and the infrastructure is in place, then Brandon can thrive as well."

Waddell also added that many people have asked him how a Tory government would improve the province’s rural roads.

"The stretch of road from Wawanesa to Rock Lake or the stretch of road from Shilo to Wawanesa … Shilo is a major partner in our region and people that want to commute from smaller centres south of Shilo, they’re driving on what is literally a life-threatening gravel road that hasn’t been on the (highway improvement) list for years."

Following the discussion, candidates and AMM representatives joined Brandon Mayor Shari Decter Hirst on a tour of some of the city’s identified infrastructure shortcomings in "The Flats" neighbourhood at the base of the Eighth Street bridge.

The AMM plans to bring a similar roundtable discussion to the communities of Lorette and Portage la Prairie in the coming days.

 

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

The Association of Manitoba Municipalities hosted a round-table discussion on infrastructure in Brandon yesterday, to which provincial election candidates and members of Brandon’s civic, public and private sectors were invited. Among the stand-out contributors to the local conversation were:

 

* Brandon Mayor Shari Decter Hirst — In her presentation to open the discussion, Decter Hirst plainly stated that Brandon’s municipal taxes would have to go up 112 per cent next year if the city were to begin addressing its $165-million infrastructure deficit without government help.

"If we can’t put (the federal and provincial governments) at the table, we will never be able to get a handle on our infrastructure," she said. "We’ll never build the city or being able to maintain the city without additional dollars for infrastructure."

 

* Town Centre managing partner Marlow Kirton — Kirton suggested that Brandon’s infrastructure deficit isn’t insurmountable, but rather "something to shoot for." However, he said it won’t be solved with a "quick and easy answer."

"Taxpayers literally everywhere in the world only know two things: they know when things work and they know when they don’t work," he said. "All they know is when the water runs clear, they know when the water comes out and it’s brown, they know when the road is smooth and they know when a pothole takes the front off their car. There are extremes out there, and to take half-measures, I don’t think is going to do it."

 

* Brandon auto dealership owner Kent Forman — Forman, a businessman and member of the Brandon Chamber of Commerce’s executive, told the AMM that thoughts of any proposal to hike the PST made his "blood run cold."

"My internal infrastructure starts to freeze up," he said. "In business, we have to pay for stuff and I just wonder if there isn’t a way of adopting a more ‘user-pay’ method of funding infrastructure rather than just going straight to retail sales transactions."

 

* AMM president Doug Dobrowolski — In closing the roundtable, Dobrowolski suggested the AMM would be making it clear to provincial election candidates what they feel they should and shouldn’t be responsible for funding.

"In some cases, maybe the municipalities should be doing these things that the province does because we can do a better job of it and be more cost-efficient."

 

» Brandon Sun