The recent federal election provides the opportunity for another reset in the troubled, tempestuous relationship between the federal government and municipal governments across Canada.

Several Big City Mayors, under the FCM flag, met with Prime Minister Trudeau recently. Good for them. They emphasized the need for federal support (in the billions of dollars) for transit, affordable housing and climate change. These are all ideal partnership opportunities that will provide long-term benefits.

There are, however, still two issues that arise out of discussions with a PM.

First, the role of provincial (and territorial) governments in any such funding program. And of course that's where so often things get sticky. For whatever reasons—petty politics; petty party politics; petty party personal politics; petty party personal—well, you get the idea.

The truth is that too often in our history, attempts to do very large tri-partite funding programs for infrastructure fail or are diminished because somebody wouldn't play nicely with the other kids in the sandbox.

I still remember with sad bemusement a big national initiative perhaps a dozen years ago which was started with great fanfare as the feds desperately sought 'shovel-ready projects' to promote economic growth and employment...yet they refused to share the sign on the site that would have acknowledged the participation of the province and municipality. So of course we ended up with three different government signs on every construction site.

Way to work together, kids.

The federal government has a bad habit of only pushing major infrastructure spending when it fits their own political agenda. They don't seem to comprehend that: 1) municipalities have a different fiscal year; 2) big projects take a lot of planning and design; and 3) municipalities can no longer afford the traditional 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 funding formula.

As a result in Canada, too often we have seen small, quick projects funded instead of big, truly community-changing investments. The money is churned out of Ottawa and announced proudly by the local MP, but are these projects really the highest and best use of infrastructure dollars?

The second big issue is that municipalities are still inadequately funded.

For years, maybe decades, municipalities have been talking about regular, predictable and assured funding. The last major initiative that I recall was Paul Martin when he brought in the Gas Tax in 2005 that was shared with cities. It has been a game-changer that has put tens of billions of dollars into municipal coffers.

That is the kind of funding that cities really need. I have argued for some time that 1 cent of the provincial sales tax and 1 cent of the federal sales tax would make the most sense to improve funding for our cities. Consumption taxes by definition are a fairer tax concept than relying so predominantly on the out-dated property tax system.

That is the BHAG for cities. (Big Hairy Audacious Goal). I hope the Big City Mayors and the FCM and all the provincial municipal associations will have the courage and foresight to keep this goal in mind in their discussions over the next few years with the new federal government.

Change can happen.