125 MiWay buses should deliver $500M funding shortfall message: Mississauga councillor

A Mississauga councillor and social advocacy group want to use 125 MiWay transit buses to deliver the message that residents of Canada’s seventh-largest city are being underfunded by some $500 million a year.

A notice of motion from Ward 11 Coun. Brad Butt to be dealt with Wednesday morning at city council calls for the City of Mississauga to provide as much as $250,000 in advertising space on buses and bus shelters operated by MiWay, Mississauga’s public transit provider.

The in-kind contribution, noted Butt in his motion, would be made to the Peel Metamorphosis Network, which would use the ad space to “better inform and educate Mississauga residents about concerns relating to the underfunding of municipal and social services.”

Comprised of more than 100 non-profit community services agencies in Peel that have joined forces to ensure services are “fully funded, effective and meet the needs of the community,” the Metamorphosis Network presented estimates in an earlier report that show Mississauga, Brampton and Caledon are chronically and massively underfunded by the Ontario government.

The report found residents of the region’s three municipalities “receive less provincial funding for municipal and social services than the average resident of Ontario municipalities, receiving an average of $578 less, annually, per person.”

The report also noted the cumulative gap in funding “amounts to over $868 million in underfunding across Peel, on average each year, and almost half a billion dollars for Mississauga alone.”

City and regional politicians and senior staff have been pounding on the doors at Queen’s Park for decades to be heard — and to get a big cheque — on the chronic underfunding issue.

If Butt’s notice of motion succeeds, the mobile advertising campaign would see information posted on one-quarter of MiWay’s buses (or 125 of its fleet of 500) and about 12 per cent of its bus shelter ad space.

In June, council agreed — also via a Butt motion — to more aggressively push the province for the much-needed dollars.

The earlier motion asked that:

• council push the province, Premier Doug Ford, ministers and local MPPs “to make an immediate commitment to providing a fair, new deal for Mississauga to ensure municipal and social services in Mississauga receive an equitable share of provincial investment”
• council call on the province to meet with the city and non-profit groups “to work together on a plan to address provincial underfunding of municipal and social services in Mississauga”

Peel and its member municipalities have been calling on the province since the early 1990s to provide more funding for key services.

City officials have said chronic funding shortfalls have, among other impacts, led to longer wait times and less equitable access to services for Mississauga residents and local communities.

Butt noted earlier that as a “world-class city that’s an economic engine for Ontario and Canada,” Mississauga and its residents must be able “to access and rely upon appropriate social services and supports such as child care, seniors care, mental health care” and other services in order to “thrive and succeed.”

To help cover the cash shortfall over the years, Mississauga has increased property taxes and introduced user fees, Butt’s earlier notice of motion noted.