Good morning, Mr. Chair and esteemed members of the Standing Committee on Finance.
My name is Andrew Black, and I am the mayor of the new municipality of Tantramar. I am also the president of the Union of the Municipalities of New Brunswick, and as such I have a board seat with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities.
Mr. Chair, I want to thank everyone for the opportunity to be here today as a witness leading into the 2024 federal budget on behalf of my municipality and its constituents and of municipalities across New Brunswick. I am here today to speak about two topics that have a direct impact on my municipality, but I want to make it clear that municipalities across New Brunswick and arguably across the nation are just as impacted by these topics as Tantramar is. I know I have maybe around five minutes, so I will be brief. The focus of my remarks is housing and public health and safety.
I will start with the housing crisis that is affecting Canadians across the country and that is felt deeply here in the communities of New Brunswick. I was first elected to council just over seven years ago, and from a municipal perspective, we were not talking about housing. In the last three years, that has changed significantly, with municipalities being on the front line of the housing crisis due to population increases over the COVID years, a downloading of responsibility for housing onto the municipal sector and the fact that our constituents across the province are crying out for locally elected leaders to take action.
Mr. Chair, it does not help the situation when two of the federal leaders voice opinions on housing, one saying that it is not a primary responsibility of the federal government and the other making comments that municipalities are gatekeepers to development. The absolute reality is that being responsible for housing in local government is unfamiliar territory for municipalities, and the file is more complicated than it seems, with a cursory glance and a quick comment doing nothing to help anyone understand that complexity. I will call out here today, Mr. Chair, that we need help.
The Reaching Home program is an essential component of the federal government’s response strategy for chronic homelessness. This funding, including its dedicated rural and remote stream, should be scaled up and made permanent to address current needs and engage in preventive measures. Homelessness is not going away; it will be here for a significant amount of time, unfortunately.
The rapid housing initiative is a groundbreaking direct transfer to municipalities that has the potential to make substantial change happen, but it needs to be made into a long-term program with predictable funding beyond 2024 so that each RHI unit can provide funding for wraparound health and social supports and permanent operating funding to maintain affordability.
The housing accelerator fund is now open to municipalities, and it is most welcome, but to support Canadians in search of rental options, the federal government needs to optimize and invest in critical national housing strategy programs such as the national housing co-investment fund and the rental construction financing initiative to create more affordable rental supply.
Mr. Chair, everyone needs a place to call home, and having secure, safe and appropriate housing is an anchor in addressing other needs, such as mental health and addiction supports and food security for many people in New Brunswick.
The second topic flows from the first, and that is a new approach to safer and healthier communities. Municipal governments in places such as Tantramar are the closest to the people. They are on the front lines of Canada’s unmet mental health needs, often providing essential services like social and community programming, supportive housing, community outreach, and substance and addictions support services. To add to the complexity of the issue, mental health challenges are often linked with the dual crises of addiction and homelessness, with municipal governments often needing to take the lead on community well-being. A lack of affordable and supportive housing, inadequate mental health care and the impacts of systemic racism on indigenous people and racialized communities are contributing to the mental health and addictions issues manifesting in municipalities of all sizes.
Mr. Chair, the federal government needs to develop a comprehensive national mental health strategy that addresses the interconnected issues of housing, homelessness and substance abuse while increasing mental health investments in communities through sustainable long-term funding.
Community safety is also deeply connected to how we police our communities. Municipalities in New Brunswick have complex and unique public safety needs, and local leaders understand those best. With crime significantly on the rise in New Brunswick and with the recent breakdown in communication regarding RCMP back pay and negotiations, the federal government must meaningfully consult municipalities about decisions related to the future of RCMP contract policing.
I want to add one more thing to my closing remarks, and that is an urgent call to streamline and simplify federal funding applications for municipalities, whether for housing, infrastructure, climate change or anything else.
Many municipalities, particularly small municipalities, do not have the expertise or capacity to even dream of applying for these much-needed streams. Those processes could be torn apart and rewritten for adequate and fast-tracked approaches to funding opportunities.
Thank you once again, Mr. Chair and committee members, for this opportunity.