TO: Members of Council June 1th‘ ‘c:

FROM: Mayor J.M. Campbell
“JUN-t8-1974---

Re: Canadian Federation of Mayors & Municipalities’ Conference

I'm convinced that the CFMM is now making progress. Its main objective
is to bring about tri-level conferences with the Federal and Provincial governments.
One has already been held and there is another one this fall. The main objective,
of course, is a better financial formula for the municipalities. We all agreed
that conditional grants were forcing us to change our priorities and were not
good in the long run for us. We had speeches by The Honourable Ron Basford
(Liberal), George Hees (Conservative), David Lewis, (N.D.P.), and The Honourable
D. Cody (N.D.P., Saskatchewan) , and Premier E. Schryer (Manitoba}. Ail these men
accepted the fact that we were in trouble and were in favour of the tri-level idea
with more direct aid from the Federal Government.

An interesting observation to me was the fact that the Federal and
Proyinciai are accredited governments whilst we are only corporations. This
weakens our position and we should demand the status. We all apreed that we

allowed ourselves to be put down all the time and accept our role as not too

important, by comparison. ‘This is totally incorrect as we are the most closely

associated with the people and have a strong, instant effect on our constituents.
Therefore we must take every opportunity to sell our case to the people, convince
them that we are capable and credible and that we are the focal point of the
political system. It was pointed out that the Federal Government increased its
budget by 26%, the Provincial Government by 25% and there was no outcry. It is
accepted by the people and I would hate to be here if we had the same increase
which would amount to over 20 mills. And yet the costs to us have risen by 18%
and labour by 12%. Each year, as our capital costs go up, the flexibility of our
budget goes down. We also agreed that we-are too prone to accept new

responsibilities without proper funding and they all agreed with me that Education

oeee.cont'd., = Page - 2 -