Meeting the needs of towns and cities will become a major campaign issue leading up to this fall's election, said NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair as he wooed the province's municipal leaders Saturday.
Speaking before a conference for the Quebec Union of Municipalities at the Palais des congress in Montreal, he made promises including pledging to restore daily home mail delivery.
“I'm here to tell you that the NDP will restore door-to-door mail delivery across Canada,” he told the municipal officials.
Liberal MP Stephane Dion echoed those sentiments, with both parties putting down the Conservatives for not challenging the Canada Post reform.
Dion said consultations and studies were launched to consider options, but said the Conservatives have failed on them.
He also said Canadian cities are being let down by the Conservatives.
“Just to balance the budget on time for the election, they cut their program by more than 80 per cent and that's very unacceptable,” he said.
Canada is the only G7 country to have cut back on its mail in such a way, added Mulcair.
Earlier in the morning, the Conservative Infrastructure Minister Denis Lebel said it would ask Canada Post about the consultation process conducted in cities on the installation of community mailboxes, but stressed that that the Crown corporation was free to choose and that neither he nor the government could decide in place.
Mulcair made other promises, too. If elected, he said the NDP would transfer $500 million from the federal gas tax to fund municipal infrastructure and create a national public transportation strategy.
“Canada is the only in the G7 with no national vision whatsoever for public transit. No plan, no ideas. We'll change that,” he said.
The NDP would maintain federal subsidies for co-operative and social housing, he said.
“We will have predictable, dedicated, transparent and long-term funding for infrastructure, housing and transit… and make new investments to address Canada's affordable housing crisis,” he said.
Lebel was met with loud protesters Saturday morning as he entered the conference.
Social housing activists FRAPRU criticized the Conservative government for violating the right to housing by not renewing its existing funding for social housing. They said it endangers the affordability of housing for those with lower incomes.
When asked about the matter, Lebel said the federal government had simply finished paying the mortgages for social housing.
“When you have finished paying for your house, you do not continue to give money to the bank,” he said, adding that his government understood the importance of social housing in urban areas.
“We put more money than other governments in social housing and will continue to do so," he said.
Whoever comes into power in Ottawa will have to take cities seriously, said Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre.
“There's no such thing as divide to conquer in the municipal world,” said Coderre. “We are all talking with one voice. We are that counter balance which is key to make sure that we get most of the things for the citizen.”
With files from La Presse Canadienne
