Windsor's mayor is confident that the provincial and federal governments will come to an agreement on financial help for municipalities.
The Large Urban Mayors' Caucus, which includes Windsor, issued a call for financial help in late April, citing "unprecedented revenue losses" during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Together with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, the caucus requested upwards of $10-billion in aid.
Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens told AM800's The Morning Drive it's a bit of a constitutional crisis because cities and municipalities are the responsibility of the province.
"I think it's fair to say when you're talking in the order of magnitude like the Federation of Canadian Municipalities have asked for 10 to 15 billion dollars, that the only level of government that really has that level of resource available is the federal government so the two of them, I'm sure will figure it out," says Dilkens.
He says simply allowing municipalities to run a deficit is a bad idea.
"We are the ones that have the lowest ability and the lowest taxation or the lowest ability to get the lowest interest rates, so the feds have the best ability to do that and that's where we should be at this point," says Dilkens.
He says the City of Windsor has been in good shape in terms of access to emergency capital via a line of credit.
“Which is meant for short term, cash flow management, not for longer term debt financing and thankfully the decisions that we've made over the last decade to 15 years our city is in a great shape to weather this type of storm and have the cash flow to do that.”
It's illegal for municipalities across Ontario to run budgetary deficits and the mayors say they have limited ways to raise money.
Guelph Mayor Cam Guthrie, who also serves as the chairman of the Large Urban Mayors' Caucus of Ontario, says municipalities across the province are contemplating deep service cuts, if they cannot secure funding from both levels of government.
A spokeswoman for Ontario's Municipal Affairs Minister Steve Clark, says the province plans to raise the issue of municipal support during a conference call with the federal government on Thurday.
--With files from AM800's Rob Hindi--