Mayor Sam Katz put the province in his crosshairs during his eighth state of the city address in Winnipeg Friday.
"The province just doesn't get it when it comes to giving us the ability to build a great modern city," said Katz
The annual speech was made to a crowd of 1,000 made up mostly of the city's business community at the Winnipeg Convention Centre.
Katz repeatedly chastised the Selinger government, accusing it of being out of touch with respect to funding municipal infrastructure projects.
"It has become clear to me by watching far too many projects like rapid transit that get slowed down and stalled due to outdated methods of funding and deal-making with our province," Katz said.
Local Government Minister Ron Lemieux was in attendance and downplayed Katz's verbal attacks, saying he is willing to listen to the mayor's suggestions on how to fix crumbling infrastructure.
"We believe in the City of Winnipeg, and we want to see the city of Winnipeg move forward and be the best city it can be," Lemieux said.
The address comes after the province warned the city they would not allow them to use 100 per cent of the proceeds from a proposed 20 cent transit fare hike to pay for rapid transit, indicating the city would have to look elsewhere for the funds. The city has since scrapped the proposed 20 cent fare hike.
The province has already committed approximately one third of the funding needed for the rapid transit projects.
The mayor said he won't quit until a fair infrastructure deal is reached -- something that could take years. When asked if that means he's running again for office in 2014, Katz would not confirm whether he has plans to seek the mayoral post once more.
