New documentation proves the Harper government has deliberately misled Canadians with its convenient claims that it does not track stimulus expenditure and jobs creation statistics, Liberal Infrastructure Critic Gerard Kennedy said today.
“Given the historic size of current infrastructure stimulus promises, Canadians have every right to know what they’re getting for their billions of dollars,” said Mr. Kennedy. “Yet Minister Baird denies Canadians basic information on how much stimulus funding has been advanced to municipalities or how many stimulus jobs have been created.”
Municipalities have provided three quarterly reports on job creation and stimulus spending for 1,721 promised projects to the federal government, with the latest due as recently as November 15. Despite repeated requests from the Parliamentary Budget Officer, Opposition parties and taxpayer watchdog groups, none of this information has been made public.
“While Minister Baird’s department is tracking how much spending is going out the door and how many Canadians the stimulus funds are employing, he is concealing that information from the public,” said Mr. Kennedy. “There can only be one reason – the Conservatives made false claims of ‘90% of projects implemented’ and thousands of jobs created, while hiding the information that contradicts those claims.”
“Schedule H” of the Infrastructure Stimulus Fund contribution agreement for Ontario states that recipients “shall submit monthly Project Status Reports” to the federal government, including “actual construction start and end dates.” Furthermore, “Quarterly Expenditure and Job Creation Reports” are to be submitted for each individual project. Similar requirements exist in other provinces.
Liberal research sampling 1,000 projects has shown just 12% of projects promised were generating any jobs by September.
Questions about the effectiveness of Canada’s economic stimulus program comes as new GDP numbers released yesterday showed that Canada’s economic recovery is the second worst among G7 nations, lagging behind Japan, Germany, the United States, Italy and France.
Background:
“Schedule H” of the Infrastructure Stimulus Fund contribution agreement for Ontario
