Last week, in an attempt to foreground the municipal infrastructure deficit, the Association of Manitoba Municipalities (AMM) started a campaign with the flat-footed title “Put Communities First.”

According to AMM, the heart of the issue is that many of Manitoba’s municipalities are currently having serious trouble finding funding for causes such as community centre restoration and roadwork. In the view of the association, this is a problem for the provincial parties to deal with, especially with the election so close at hand.

To this gallant association I say: good luck on getting a straight answer.

For us in the city of Winnipeg, the infrastructural deficit has been estimated at $3.8 billion. Always a fountain of profound thought, Sam Katz was quoted as saying, “It’s no secret that our infrastructure has been neglected for decades and we have some catch up to play,” when this issue was first raised in May.

Decades? How can an issue so crucial be so flagrantly ignored? How can we as voters be putting people into public office if they do not serve some of our most basic needs?

For the municipalities outside Winnipeg, the number has been put at $7.5 billion, which means that as a province we are over $11 billion in the hole.

In response to the deficit, Winnipeg’s city council executive policy committee agreed to ask the province for a one-point share of the seven-point PST, which would be put toward offsetting the deficit. This move is an attempt to combat the same formidable foe that is currently dogging much of the world: debt.

The local media has been largely uncritical of this measure, and with good reason: there don’t seem to be many options available to us at the moment.

It is symbolic of our day and age that the government has to make specific concessions in order to spend a significant amount of PST on infrastructure, rather than it being a given.

This issue should make us question what our taxes are being used for and why.

Why is only one per cent being asked for here? It seems that a larger portion of taxes should be going toward such dire situations. In the face of our infrastructure deficit, the age-old question arises: what are we paying for as a population?

I’ll be honest: I don’t know.

When you find that bumpy road hard to navigate, or when you hear about pedestrians getting nailed because certain intersections are “just dangerous,” why should you not ask your government directly about the issue?

If you pay taxes, you are paying for issues such as this – which speak to our collective quality of life – to be addressed. Of course, the multitude of road issues in this province makes it tough for city workers to be at your beck and call, but the point still stands.

Perhaps this speaks to a deeper problem with the structure of government. It seems nuts that we can find ourselves with a deficit in the billions, and yet only recently begin to come up with solutions.

Predictably, this will become something of an election issue, and the promises are bound to fly. The PCs will label this an NDP-specific problem, while the Liberals will claim this problem could never happen under their leadership.

But the voters in the rural municipalities, as well as in the city of Winnipeg, must bear in mind that politics is one thing, and real action quite another.

Trevor Graumann is a graduate of the University of Winnipeg and The Uniter’s comments editor.

Published in Volume 66, Number 3 of The Uniter (September 15, 2011)