Submissions
The Ontario Sewer and Watermain Construction Association Summary of Recommendations to Provide Provincial Financial Relief to Aid in Other Priority Infrastructure Investments and Post-Pandemic Economic Recovery, Improve Environmental Outcomes, and Create Sustainable Employment Opportunities.
2023 Pre Budget Submission – Full-Cost Recovery for Municipal Water and Wastewater Systems:
On behalf of our members, the Ontario Sewer and Watermain Construction Association (OSWCA) would like to provide the following recommendations for mandating full-cost recovery for municipal water and wastewater systems to ensure municipal infrastructure assets are being managed and invested in, in the most efficient and sustainable way possible.
Employing measures to ensure the most efficient and strategic allocation of resources will be critical, not only to sustainable infrastructure investment, but too, as Ontario moves through the post-pandemic economic recovery process. By requiring municipalities to operate their water and wastewater systems on a full-cost recovery basis, the province will: create consistent and sustainable jobs at the municipal level by ensuring stable and predictable annual investments in local infrastructure; ensure the sustainability of municipal operators to deliver clean drinking water and appropriately treat and dispose wastewater; and, perhaps entirely remove the need for provincial subsidization of municipal water and wastewater systems.