A few days before the October 21 federal election, Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart issued a public statement urging voters to vote for anybody but the Conservative Party. The former NDP MP stated that a Conservative government would be “a disaster for the city.” To support this unusual intervention, Stewart asserted that a Conservative government would provide less help (i.e., federal money) for affordable housing and urban transit and would be less open to helping with the opioid crisis through measures such as providing a “safe” supply of drugs to addicts at government expense. Kennedy was elated with the outcome, a Liberal minority government supported by the NDP.

Stewart wasn’t the only happy mayor. Jonathan Coté is mayor of nearby New Westminster and chair of the mayors’ council at the regional transportation authority, TransLink. He said he was encouraged that the Liberal and NDP platforms included “some pretty significant commitments for investing in public transit.” Coté added, “I think we’re cautiously optimistic that it looks like a coalition government will partner with major cities.”

Before the election, the Big City Mayors’ Caucus, a collection of 22 cities that’s part of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM), issued a call for all federal party leaders to commit to “permanent” funding for transit. The mayors demanded the Trudeau government’s 10-year federal transit plan be perpetuated. This followed an earlier FCM statement calling on all federal parties to commit to making low-income housing more accessible.

Toronto Mayor John Tory supported the call by the Big City Mayors’ Caucus and praised the current federal transit plan, which has helped pay for improvements in Quebec City, Edmonton, Toronto, and other cities. The ironically named mayor called the Trudeau government “good partners” and added, “We need them to make solid commitments to us for the long term.” Going into the election the Trudeau government had, in fact, committed to spending more than $1 billion to improve public transit in Toronto. Canadian brokerage politics on full display.

Making good on the promise

Trudeau’s Liberals won almost all of their seats in the cities. The leader hardly campaigned anywhere else. Of the 65 electoral districts with the densest populations of at least 2,500 people per square kilometre, the Liberals won 54, the NDP took most of the rest, and the Conservatives won none. It seems obvious Trudeau will give the mayors what they’re asking for.

The federal government has no way to magically create money. Trudeau’s government will get the money by taxing residents of cities and then giving the money to city governments. There seems to be an unnecessary step there. But that is not the whole story. Some of the money will also come from taxing residents of rural areas, where most people voted Conservative. These residents will do their part to help the cities with their pressing problems.