Mayor Nenshi Keynote - Canadian Urban Forum - 19 June 2013 Ottawa

The Canadian Urban Institute and its partners convened the Canadian Urban Forum to bring together leaders from across Canada to identify new models for tomorrow's infrastructure. Infrastructure is vital to our global competitiveness, delivering everyday needs and enabling people, goods and services to move and interact effectively. However, getting essential infrastructure built in a time of fiscal constraint is a challenge facing Canada's municipalities and every publicly funded institution across the country. Although there is agreement in principle from the federal government through the renewal of infrastructure funding for municipalities, solutions still need to be found to address the additional infrastructure needs of the nation's universities, schools, hospitals and housing agencies as well as long-term, larger scale community projects and programs like higher order transit.

Keynote speakers MPP Glen Murray, Ontario's Minister of Infrastructure and Transportation and City of Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi both talked about the opportunities to make cities better for the growing number of Canadians who are living in them. In his keynote, Mayor Nenshi emphasized the need for long-term, stable, and predictable funding sources for cities to build transit, housing, and water and wastewater infrastructure.