Winnipeg Mayor Brian Bowman was in Ottawa Monday for a meeting of the Big City Mayors’ Caucus, and he says one of the issues that has been at the top of the agenda is public transit funding.
“It’s a similar dynamic with other Canadian cities that are all trying to grapple with growing community needs to move growing communities around in a way that’s also climate change-friendly,” Bowman told 680 CJOB Monday.
“The need for a permanent transit fund is particularly important in Winnipeg’s case as we’re trying to modernize our public transportation system and we have challenges with funding levels from other levels of government.”
Bowman said he and his counterparts from more than 20 cities across the country are asking for concrete investment in public transit.
All levels of government need to to work collaboratively on the issue, he said, but the dialogue with the feds is going well so far.
“As we looked forward at the upcoming federal budget, there was meaningful dialogue with the federal government about what we’d like to see in the budget,” said Bowman.
The mayor, who has dubbed 2019 Winnipeg’s “Year of Transit,” has had a number of high-profile spats with Manitoba premier Brian Pallister on transit-related issues.
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