B.1

MOTION ON NOTICE

At the Council meeting of December 4, 2001, Councillor Louis submitted the following motion. Councillor Puil called Notice under Section 7.2 of the Procedure By-law.

Federal Government Budget (File 1263)

WHEREAS, the federal government is producing a budget on December 10;

AND WHEREAS, all levels of government posted a consolidated surplus of $25.7 billion last year and the federal finance department announced in September that the cumulative budgetary surplus was $13.6 billion year-to-date;

AND WHEREAS, nearly 90 per cent of Canadians live in urban centres;

AND WHEREAS, the federal government cut almost $2 billion from federal housing spending from 1984 to 1993, resulting in the end of all federal funding of new social housing in 1993;

AND WHEREAS, more than a quarter million Canadians, including tens of thousands of infants and children, will experience homelessness this year;

AND WHEREAS, the federal government takes over $300 million dollars annually in gas tax from Lower Mainland vehicle users;

AND WHEREAS, Canada is the only G7 country that doesn't have a federal public transit infrastructure program;

AND WHEREAS, the Lower Mainland has been recognized as having the second worst air quality in Canada, causing environmental and health damage;

AND WHEREAS, the southern pods of Orca whales in Georgia Strait have been elevated to the most endangered species status;

AND WHEREAS, the Greater Vancouver Regional District (GVRD) failed seven out of eight Environment Canada toxicity tests at Lionsgate and Iona treatment plants between May, 2001 and October, 2001;

AND WHEREAS, the GVRD dumps over three billion litres of untreated sewage into Burrard Inlet, False Creek and the North Arm of the Fraser River each year;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that Vancouver City Council take a regional leadership role and write a letter to the federal government requesting federal resources be committed in this budget to:

(a) improving public transit and creating a national public transit infrastructure program;

(b) building new social housing and restoring a national housing program; and

(c) upgrading the Iona and Lionsgate secondary treatment plants and accelerating the conversion of the combined sewer outfalls.

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(c) 1998 City of Vancouver