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On November 16th, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) released, Building Back Better Together, its recommendations to build a better Canada during and after COVID-19. The release was made one day ahead of FCM's Advocacy Day on Parliament Hill.
The recommendations are divided into three categories with a number of policy priorities and recommendations:
- Building an Inclusive Recovery
- Ending Homelessness, Scaling up Rapid Housing Initiative and Preventing Homelessness recommendations including:
- Add $282 million annually to the Reaching Home Initiative for communities to develop and deliver the local system and expand the rural/remote stream of Reaching Home.
- Launch non-market housing construction program for mixed income, multi-unit housing owned and operated by the community housing sector
- Invest directly in community, culture and recreational infrastructure through a Municipal Economic Recovery Fund
- Building a Green Recovery
- Modernizing Public Transit, Scaling up Community Climate Act and Strengthen Community Resilient recommendations including:
- Launch the promised Permanent Transit Fund
- Create a new federal funding program to support rural and regional transportation to include eligible capital costs for inter-city and regional mobility services across the country.
- Provide economic recovery funding to municipalities to finance and adapt proven climate change mitigation and resilience solutions
- Increase Disaster Mitigation and Adaptation Fund investments to encourage more local adaptation projects, enable municipalities to acquire land to improve access to nature and eliminate eligibility floor which excludes smaller, rural and remote communities.
- Building a Resilient Partnership
- Ensuring Immediate stability, Partner on National Challenges, Strengthen Current Direct Funding Tools and Ensure Long-Term Municipal Resilience recommendations including:
- Work with partners on a successor to the Safe Restart Agreement
- Double Gas Tax allocations for three years through a Municipal Economic Recovery Fund
- Work together on universal access to the internet and deliver on commitment for expediting funding delivery through streamlined application process and one-window intake.