• Report provides good catalogue of 'known' challenges facing Canadian cities
  
• CTF notes 75% of task force's 52 recommendations focus on process not results
  
• Report fails to address number one challenge: the constitutional question
  
• Cities must get their own acts together - first

OTTAWA: The Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) has reacted to an interim report released today by the Prime Minister's Task Force on Urban Issues entitled Canada's Urban Strategy: A Vision for the 21st Century.

Catalogue of 'known' challenges
"For Canadians who are new to the urban issues debate, this report does provide a good catalogue of the known issues facing Canada's urban regions," said CTF federal director Walter Robinson.

Do cities want process or results
"However, 75% of the report's 52 recommendations focus on process instead of results. Sadly, it is over-flowing with management consulting buzzword jargon about coordination of efforts, collaborative endeavours, strategic investments ad nauseum," added Robinson. "In two weeks the CTF will lay out its own funding formula for urban needs derived from the $5 billion federal pillaging of motorists at gas stations each year."

The constitutional question
"As well, cities are legal creatures of the provinces according to the constitution which makes a concerted federal effort to address urban challenges somewhat problematic," said Robinson. "This is where municipal leaders must create space for creative, revenue-neutral solutions to meet municipal needs for infrastructure without increasing the overall tax burden paid by Canadian taxpayers."

It's about priorities
"City governments must get their own acts together in rooting out wasteful spending by setting funding priorities, embracing more public-private partnerships and yes, privatizing or contracting out non-core services," concluded Robinson.