As municipal leaders continue to speak out about infrastructure delays, Liberal Infrastructure Critic Gerard Kennedy today revealed explosive findings of Conservative political favouritism in British Columbia, where the Harper government is funnelling 325 per cent more taxpayer dollars to Conservative ridings compared to non-Conservative ridings.
“Liberals supported an economic stimulus program to get urgent help to unemployed workers, not to see it used as a Conservative slush fund,” said Mr. Kennedy. “We’ve lost confidence because money isn’t flowing and the government is punishing unemployed workers in non-Conservative ridings.”
In the second instalment of the provincial series, Mr. Kennedy found that Conservative ridings have been promised an average of $9.3 million, compared to an average of $2.2 million for Liberal and NDP ridings. The overall funding disparity means that Conservative ridings received an extra $158 million dollars. The top 10 ridings receiving funding are all
Conservative, with Conservative House Leader Jay Hill raking in the second highest allocation, at four times the provincial average.
“In B.C. the Conservatives have one of their worst records on job creation because 27 per cent of the funds have yet to be announced, and of the funds already announced, 51 per cent of were only announced last week and only 22 per cent were previously announced.
I’d like to hear Prime Minister Harper justify this brazen abuse of public funds, and the delays that go along with it,” said Mr. Kennedy. “Even the mayors whose communities should benefit from the funding are speaking out against how inefficient it is.”
Yesterday, Edmonton Mayor Stephen Mandel informed the Standing Committee on Finance that none of the five infrastructure projects in his city are underway because the federal government has made the process too cumbersome. He told the Edmonton Journal, “when the goal is to see a quick distribution of funds, the funding mechanism is of equal importance to the funding amount.”
Likewise, Kitchener Mayor Carl Zehr told CBC yesterday, “”We could have moved faster earlier in the year had we had approvals and the cash [earlier]… But without that commitment, we were reluctant to select tenders and that sort of thing.”
Saint John, New Brunswick Mayor Ivan Court told the Canadian Press yesterday, “The longer it takes to issue the cheques, the less time there is to complete the work before the two-year program expires.”
Contact:
Office of Gerard Kennedy, MP
613-992-2936
BACKGROUND
Provincial data series fact sheets:
http://www.liberal.ca/pdf/docs/300909bcisf_en.pdf
