Kitchener mayor talks affordable housing and transit with other Big City Mayors
Posted Jun 6, 2016 05:17:26 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Kitchener Mayor Berry Vrbanovic was in Winnipeg over the weekend to discuss the second phase of federal funding on infrastructure.
Vrbanovic met with Minister Jean-Yves Duclos who is the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development to discuss affordable housing in Waterloo Region.
“We have a list in Kitchener of about three-thousand people waiting for affordable housing that at any point in time wait averages around three years long. That really is far too long.”
Vrbanovic also discussed with Minister Duclos the importance of social housing in the next phase of federal infrastructure programs.
Big City Mayors also met with Minister Amarjeet Sohi who is the Minister of Infrastructure and Communities.
Vrabnovic says that Minister Sohi realizes that smaller communities don’t have the transit ridership compared to bigger cities like Toronto but that smaller communities still need to be a focus in transit spending.
“He indicated that his intent would be that phase two of transit funding would somehow take into account mid-sized systems like ours that have a desire to grow in the future.”
Discussions of bringing two-way all day go train service also took place but Mayor Vrbanovic says discussions are more on the provincial side of things right now.
“Part of the discussion right now is being focused at a provincial level with the transport minister and the province having discussions with CN Rail and CP Rail in terms of that Northern line that goes from Toronto into Brampton and onto Kitchener.”
Over the next ten years, the federal government has committed over 120-billion dollars in funding for infrastructure that was previously announced in the federal budget.
