The Federation of Canadian Municipalities has descended upon Ottawa to push our new government to follow up on campaign promises.
PG Councillor Garth Frizzell is among local representatives looking to make municipal issues a top priority.
he’s seen plenty of concrete changes during his seven years on the FCM board, including the creation of the federal gas tax.
“The gas tax isn’t grant money you apply for. It’d predictable, regular funding… Millions of dollars for Prince George every year, and that’s critical. It was A) guaranteed as a piece in the budget, and B) it was indexed for inflation, so it’s growing now.”
Frizzell notes this year’s meeting looks very different…
“Rather than having MP meetings that were set up weeks in advance, we are so close to the conclusion of the election that we’re literally meeting MP’s without assigned offices yet. But what we’re doing this time is taking the election promises and made huge (sic) strides on getting commitments from the parties for municipal priorities. We’re taking those commitments and mapping out how we can make them a reality as soon as possible.”
The hopeful words mean a lot coming from Frizzell, who has served on the FCM’s board for seven years, and he;s already met with MP Todd Doherty for discussions surrounding PG.
“There’s a lot of commitments around infrastructure. It’s pretty key in our agenda. But there’s also transit, transportation, and housing. All of these are big issues, and we can see down the road issues with the environment will be playing a big role.”