Nenshi wonders where federal funding went

Province put $300 million intended for city infrastructure into general revenue

With council set to discuss the city’s new list of infrastructure needs on Monday, Mayor Naheed Nenshi says $300 million in federal funds, designated for infrastructure projects in municipalities across Alberta, is instead being spent by the province.

But Alberta Infrastructure and Transportation Minister Brian Mason said Thursday, the money doled out under the former Harper government was never intended for municipalities and was included in the province’s 2016 budget to pay for provincial infrastructure projects that directly benefit municipalities across Alberta.

During an Intergovernmental Affairs committee meeting Thursday, councillors Jim Stevenson and Andre Chabot updated their colleagues on the fate of $300 million they said was set aside for Alberta cities under the previous federal government’s New Building Canada Fund.

“We’ve been pushing the province about this $300 million,” said Stevenson. “To this day, from August until now, they’d not given us any information on it.”

Stevenson said that changed a week ago, when the province “admitted” to the president of the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association that the money had been “put in general revenue.”

After Thursday’s committee meeting, Nenshi told reporters that when money from the New Building Canada Fund finally started flowing, it had to flow through the provinces first.

“The federal government’s intent was a portion of that money — $300 million in Alberta — should go to municipalities,” Nenshi explained.

“The province’s position is that if they’re building stuff in the municipalities, that counts. So, instead of the $300 million being given to the cities, it would be used to build stuff in the cities. That’s something we’ve been going back and forth and back and forth on. What we heard this morning is the federal government is now taking the position they cannot overrule the Alberta government on this.”

But Mason said there was “no requirement in that program that this money go to municipalities.”

The NDP minister said after the money was provided to the province, the funds were included in last year’s budget to pay for provincial infrastructure projects.

“After we had included it in our budget, and approved the budget, then the federal minister said he wanted to have $300 million... go to municipalities,” Mason explained.

Mason said the province looked into directing the funds to municipal projects but found reversing the money already allocated in the budget would cost $600 million. So, the decision was made to move forward with projects already submitted.

“Unfortunately, the municipalities expectations were that some of that money would be coming to municipal projects. That’s not been possible,” Mason said, stressing that $213 million in federal funding and $213 in provincial funds have been approved for municipal projects.

Mason listed several initiatives the NDP government has introduced to benefit municipalities across the province and said his government has been “more than generous,” despite a very difficult financial position.

“We’re not able to continue to fund unlimited requests for infrastructure,” he said.

Nenshi acknowledged the NDP government is building major projects in Calgary.

“The Alberta government, to their credit, is building two extremely large provincial infrastructure programs in Calgary, which will benefit Calgarians — the southwest ring road and the cancer hospital,” he said.

“That said, we also have a lot of other needs, infrastructure needs. My opinion is that money from the federal government was intended to help the cities build the infrastructure we have to build.”

Calgarians are set to get a better look at what that list of projects in Calgary looks like on Monday, when an update on the first quarter of Infrastructure Calgary goes before council.

That money from the federal government was intended to help the cities build the infrastructure we have to build.