Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. I'm pleased to welcome you here in Calgary.
Thank you so much for coming to Calgary today and for the hard work you're doing in developing the budget.
As you know, the economy here in Calgary has been hit hard over the last couple of years. Certainly this summer we added tens of thousands of jobs. We are no longer the city with the highest unemployment rate in Canada, but we're the second highest. Clearly, much work needs to be done to sustain this fragile economic recovery, and all orders of government must work together in order to do that.
It's a weird place for us to be, here in Calgary. We're used to being Canada's economic engine. We're used to having the lowest unemployment rates in the country and bringing our prosperity and sharing it with the rest of the nation. We want to be back in that role, and we look forward to working with you to make that happen.
In my few minutes with you this morning, I want to talk briefly about six items that are very relevant to what we are doing here in Calgary. The first two are around infrastructure.
The first is about phase two of the investing in Canada plan. Let me say that we are extremely grateful for the government's interest in economic stimulus—as well as the previous governments'—and we have been able to deploy those funds into building infrastructure that is desperately needed by Calgarians.
This summer we were able to deploy $2 billion into the economy, thanks to partnerships with the federal and provincial governments as well as good financial savings from the City of Calgary. If you get a chance to travel around Calgary while you are here, you will be cursing the amount of road construction that is going on—guilty as charged. This is a very good opportunity for us to be able to build the infrastructure people need while construction costs are lower than they were two years ago and while people are out of work.
We are very interested in continuing to do that work, and we really do need clarity from the Government of Canada on how and when municipalities can access the funds of phase two of the investing in Canada plan. To give you an example, we are greatly appreciative of our phase one funding. Our pledged phase two funding from the public transit infrastructure program for the green line actually represents the single largest investment in Calgary's infrastructure by the federal government in Canadian history. However, we want more, of course, and one of the things I might highlight is that the City of Calgary has not received any of the nearly $200 million of funding available through the clean water and wastewater fund.
I just want to make the committee aware that the City of Calgary supports the watersheds throughout this region in supplying drinking water to the city of Airdrie, the town of Chestermere, and the town of Strathmore. As well, recently we agreed to supply more water and wastewater infrastructure to the Tsuut'ina first nation. I have often said that I will not be a part of the problem with drinking water on our first nations, and when we can solve it, we will.
Second, I just want to mention quickly phase two of the investing in Canada plan relating to investing in green infrastructure, and I particularly want to speak about that in relation to watershed management. We would be very appreciative of the Government of Canada considering a financial commitment to our overall watershed management, which of course involves flood mitigation upstream of the city of Calgary, managing our water supply in drought years, and climate adaptation-focused projects.
We all know that until the Fort McMurray wildfires last year, the flooding in southern Alberta in 2013 was the costliest natural disaster in Canadian history. While we have done great work in the four years since, within the city of Calgary we continue to need assistance in upstream flood mitigation. Calgary is a city that is built at the confluence of two rivers in a place the Blackfoot called Moh-Kins-Tsis, the elbow. We can't move the city. We can't make room for the river. This is where the rivers are. As a result, it is incredibly important that we do the engineering work on the upstream mitigation.
We've had a lot of conversations on upstream mitigation on the Elbow River, and we are now in the midst of having conversations about upstream mitigation on the Bow River. That mitigation is critical to protecting Calgary's downtown from further flooding events, and it's very expensive, so it is an area in which we will be looking for the federal government to participate. As well, aggressive action was recommended by the province in its August 2017 Bow River water management report that we were very pleased to be part of. We need to continue to make sure we're building resilience against floods.
Third—and you'll hear it from every mayor, of course—is affordable housing. Our role as an economic engine needs affordable housing. We have to make sure we have affordable housing throughout the spectrum. For many years, federal and provincial governments abrogated their responsibilities for building new affordable housing units. We're very thrilled to be working with Minister Duclos on a new national housing strategy, along with my colleagues at the big city mayors' caucus of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, but we need more.
Calgary is 15,000 units short of meeting the national average of affordable housing units, which was already too low. Only 3% of our housing stock is non-market, and if we're lucky, we build 100 or 150 units at a time. I've been cutting ribbons on eight-unit projects. We really need a very different way of thinking about affordable housing.
I'll go through the last three quickly.
The next one is on addressing poverty. Once again, it is time for a national poverty reduction strategy. I, along with many other mayors of course, have been a proponent of the basic income strategy; however, regardless of whether the political will exists to do that, we need to make poverty reduction a priority across our community and we would love to work with the Government of Canada to do that.
Number five is the legalization of cannabis. You may or may not know that the cities are doing all the work. The provinces recently suggested that the 50-50 split of any cannabis tax revenue is not fair because the provinces have the bulk of the work. Actually, the cities have the bulk of the work. We have to do the zoning, the regulation, the prevention, and most important, the policing, the enforcement. As a result, we need to come up with an equitable share. I would strongly suggest to the Government of Canada that any program around an excise tax on marijuana include direct transfers to the municipalities, not working through the provinces.
One small issue, but one that is very important to us, is that in this city we are experiencing the extraordinary impacts of the fentanyl crisis. We lose three to four people a week to overdose. That's far more than we lose to car collisions and violent crime together. We are very grateful for the health minister's and others' participation in addressing this crisis, but there is one very specific ask we have of you today, and that is funding for the Calgary Drug Treatment Court.
I've recently written to Minister Wilson-Raybould on this. Through alternative measures in the justice system it is an incredibly effective program to help people struggling with addiction, and they have to fundraise for it. They have bake sales to pay for the Calgary Drug Treatment Court. It's just not right. It's an integral part of the justice system. It pays for itself multiple times over, and right now it has to turn clients away. We seek a very small ask from the Government of Canada. It's not even a rounding error of a rounding error of a rounding error, but it is critical to improving people's lives.
With all of that, thank you so much for being here.
I apologize that I was both late and will have to leave early, but if you have questions for me, I will be here for the next 45 minutes or so.