For local officials, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) conference was a chance to network and get up to speed on the potential for federal infrastructure grants.
Mayor Roy Ludwig attended the conference in Niagara Falls at the Scotiabank Convention Centre along with Councillors Lori Carr and Brian Johnson. The conference ran from May 30 to June 2. City Manager Amber Smale also attended the Canadian Association of Municipal Administrators conference from May 26 to 28.
With Estevan's continuing infrastructure work, Ludwig said what the local contingent was most interested in discussing and learning about was the kind of progress municipalities were making in Ottawa regarding the new BuildingCanada Program.
"One of the main issues that we're concerned with is Canada Builds, and there was a good discussion on that and the fact that FCM have to continue to work and keep us informed and try to make some progress on the Canada Builds program," said Ludwig, who was hopeful some concessions would be made at the federal level in how funding from that program is distributed.
"The fact that there isn't a lot of money available, especially in this first year, it would appear we still have some work to do on rolling out the program," said Ludwig, noting the federal program will be rolling out for the next decade, and distributing a total of $14 billion in that time. "Hopefully, out of that will come some efficiencies on some of the money that is available and some opportunities for us to look at greater ease of getting the funding we need without a lot of red tape. (FCM) is continuing to work in those areas for us. Hopefully that will bear fruit."
FCM acts as a voice for municipalities at the federal level, intended to influence policy to benefit cities across the country.
Earlier this year, City council decided to move forward on a new $1.4 million biosolids plant, with construction to start soon.
"Our biosolids building, we're going to start that very quickly. The bid is already out, so we would like the opportunity to get some funding for projects that we've already started. Right now, it would appear that's going to be very hard," added Ludwig, who said that when it came to the biosolids building, the City just couldn't wait any longer for a federal grant.
"For the biosolids building we've been scrimping and waiting, hoping number one, of course, that we could get more funding, and number two that with the boom maybe subsiding a little bit (we could) get better pricing. We're finding with our experience, whenever we wait, the pricing goes up incrementally."
The mayor said he isn't fond of the shovel-ready approach to doling out grants with municipalities by having them get all of their plans together and then sitting on the project and waiting to hear whether or not the funding request will be approved.
"I think if it's a valid project for, in our case, municipal sewage, and it's one of the things that's going to help our community move forward then even if it was started the funding should be available."
A trade show was also part of the conference where companies offered their technologies that can be implemented with parks and public works departments.
"Anything you would use in the public-sector setting as far as public works, drainage, piping, anything like that," said Ludwig, who noted there were policy forums looking at increasing women's participation in municipal government and others looking at municipal infrastructure and transportation policy.
"There was one on raising more money without raising more taxes or user fees, so some of them were good," he said.
Speaking with other municipal leaders on issues like recycling, sewage and water, Ludwig said it's always great to hear the innovative solutions happening elsewhere and discussing whether or not they would work in Estevan. He said they also discuss programs and ideas that haven't worked and Ludwig said that information is also valuable in helping the City avoid similar pitfalls.
"It was a good opportunity to do networking with other councillors and mayors from across our great country," said Ludwig.
