Summer games funding Ottawa-Ontario tug of war
Provincial says newspaper trying to steal spotlight from athletes over letter leak
The provincial government said Friday it is committed to funding its portion of the 2021 Canada Summer Games.
However, key documents required to get final funding approval have become a political football kicked between Queen’s Park and Ottawa, The Standard has learned.
While the province submitted a letter Friday to Infrastructure Canada requesting joint funding for the games — with $29 million being contributed by both levels of government — it did not include supporting documents required by Infrastructure Canada to review and approve the request.
Instead, the letter from Ontario’s minister of infrastructure says the province has asked the 2021 Canada Summer Games Host Society to submit the documents, which include a 1,500page business case for nearly $99 million in new facilities and infrastructure for the games.
Infrastructure Canada, though, says its process specifically requires the province to submit all supporting materials for joint-funding requests through the Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program (ICIP), the federal-provincial initiative being used to fund the games.
Other parties involved in funding applications, like the host society or a municipality, cannot directly make submissions, Infrastructure Canada sources say. Meanwhile, host society board chair Doug Hamilton says he has not yet been asked by the province to send the business case to Infrastructure Canada.
He said both levels of government received the business case weeks ago, although it could not be formally submitted through the ICIP progress because the provincial government had not yet initiated it.
“We sent the full business case to both levels of government for review to get an early start on the approval process,” Hamilton said Friday afternoon, hours after Ontario Minister of Tourism, Culture and Sport Lisa MacLeod announced the government will fund the
games through ICIP. “They both have it. So I don’t understand why this an issue.”
A spokesman for the provincial minister of infrastructure, when asked by The Standard why the province did not submit the business case, called the newspaper’s questions “disingenuous” and an “attempt to create an issue where the isn’t one,” while the government supports the games “100 per cent.”
“Again, these Games are about the athletes and their commitment to excellence (and) any attempt to report otherwise takes away from the spotlight that is rightfully theirs,” says an email by Wallace Pidgeon, director of communications for Ontario Minister of Infrastructure Laurie Scott. Pidgeon did not answer repeated questions from The Standard asking if Queen’s Park will send the business case to Ottawa. MacLeod’s announcement, made Friday on Henley Island in St. Catharines, was warmly greeted by Hamilton and other games organizers who have been awaiting federal-provincial funding to begin construction.
With the 2019 construction season drawing to a close and a federal election set for October, organizers say funding has to be approved soon to ensure new venues, are ready for 2021.
After the announcement, The Standard obtained the letter sent to Infrastructure Canada asking for the joint-funding approval.
“Ontario has determined the project to be in the provincial interest and is moving forward on an expedited basis,” says the less than two-page letter.
“Ontario looks forward to receiving federal commitment and approval for the project to ensure that funds flow to this important infrastructure project as quickly as possible.”
Sources from Infrastructure Canada — speaking on condition of anonymity because they did not have permission to discuss project funding — said the federal department wants to expedite the approval, but cannot move forward if the province doesn’t file the necessary documents properly.
“I’m disappointed because this could have done weeks, even months earlier. We could have been at the podium together making this announcement for a project which is important to the people of Niagara and something the people of this region want,” said St. Catharines MP Bittle.