Thank you for the opportunity to speak today.
Thank you to the committee, and especially to my MP Peter Julian for bringing this forward.
I believe these dialogues are important. They provide a mechanism to share information whereby all levels of government can work together and aid one another, all for the common good of Canadians. The federal government's focus on supports and efforts provided so far during the pandemic are very much appreciated, and we all thank you.
At the local government level, our efforts and the tremendous dedication of our workforce continues to work in step with our local communities, delivering many hours of much needed essential services and never wavering in our dedication and commitment to our residents. However, an urgent need continues for federal government support to local governments to sustain our communities and ensure a successful recovery.
Local governments and their respective communities continue to suffer as many recently announced federal programs do not extend to local government. Local governments are the closest connection to the people as we provide essential services in meeting the needs of residents. Protective services include fire, police, water, sewer, roads and drainage, and garbage collection. They meet the basic needs of our citizens, which must be maintained to ensure livability and sustainability.
Local governments continue to be the mechanism that ensure communities remain safe and citizens receive the basic needs they've come to expect as Canadians in whatever community they live. Current programs offered by the federal government, the Canada emergency wage subsidy, the temporary wage subsidy and the Canada emergency commercial rent assistance have been put in place to help Canadian businesses but none of these are offered to the local governments. We are on the ground every day striving to meet the needs of the citizens and communities directly.
Specifically, the Canada emergency wage subsidy program provides business owners with 75% of the employees' wages to maintain business continuity and to keep employees at work. As one of the biggest local employers, if this program was to be extended to local government, our city would keep staff employed. For the City of Burnaby, facility closures, including recreation centres with pools, skating rinks, libraries and cultural centres have translated to many lost revenues. The financial impact of lost revenues is currently sitting between $5 million and $6 million per month. Anticipated costs related to the pandemic are well beyond normal spending patterns. The pandemic is forcing a financial crisis that the local governments will have a difficult time recovering from without any aid. Some local governments may never be able to recover.
Loss of revenues and additional expenditures have forced the City of Burnaby to lay off 1,500 hard-working and committed staff. We are continuously looking at ways to reduce costs by adjusting operations and cancelling or deferring needed projects in the community. However, these acts are not by any means slowing the financial drain. The vulnerable population, specifically the homeless and seniors, are struggling in the community. Programs previously offered by other levels of government have been downloaded to local government.
The City of Burnaby has extended the provision of warming centres to meet the needs of our homeless population and we continue to reach out to our seniors within the community to ensure their basic needs are being met daily. There is no funding for any of these programs, but as a local government—the people's government—we have gone, and will continue to go, over and above to ensure our citizens' needs are satisfied. This very important and critical work will only be sustainable for so long.
At the very least, the federal government needs to provide local governments with funding similar to the financial aid programs offered to the business community. This would allow us to recall staff who have been laid off, to provide the much needed services required in our community.
Federal aid is urged, and all levels of government must work together to ensure that all citizens, regardless of neighbourhood, from Burnaby to St. John’s, are able to survive this crisis and weather the storm.
I hope you will see that support for local government is an essential piece in ensuring a successful recovery from this pandemic. I hope that the federal government will seriously consider FCM's call for targeted emergency operating funding for cities, as well as my request to the federal government to extend the emergency wage subsidy program, and other programs mentioned earlier, to local governments.
We want to ramp up quickly to mobilize our staff and the community on the important work of restoring our economy. This will ensure that we can return to be the thriving country we all know and love.
Once again, thank you for the opportunity to share my comments and concerns with all of you.