Members from town council along with the CAO, travelled to Winnipeg to attend the AMM Spring Conference on April 4 to 5. Mayor Andre Murphy and CAO Jennifer Early attended a roundtable meeting of Manitoba mayors and CAOs the day before.
“We talked about what were the four pillars that were impacted every municipality right now,” said Murphy. “There was some discussion around the funding increase and what the impact of that was. There were questions asked if there were any significant demands for increased dollars for wastewater projects and if AMM would continue to oppose Bill 37 around the planning changes to allow municipalities to pass a resolution to change something in their community and not have the planning district override it. Municipalities felt this was counterproductive, especially since councils are voted in and asked by ratepayers to fix something. When a municipality does, they shouldn’t have to work against an opposing body.
“There was talk about healthcare, safety priorities, municipal service and RCMP costs and talk about what municipalities would like to see in terms of support from the next provincial government. The interesting thing from this meeting with all the municipalities across Manitoba was that all of our issues are very similar to each other’s.