Millions flowing to Peterborough, even if it isn’t ‘new’

Friday’s announcement that lucky Peterborough hit a $56 million jackpot felt like a cross between a carny game and a remake of the Wizard of Oz.

Watch the shells move around the table, and pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

It’s an old game, one governments everywhere love to play.

“Our government recognizes that strategic investments in public infrastructure help connect people, create jobs, and support economic development in our communities,” MP Maryam Monsef said.

This current rendition featured $56 million in “new” money that would flow into the city’s public transit system from a “new” infrastructure program labelled Investing in Canada.

Infrastructure ministers from both Ontario and Ottawa set the stage two days earlier with their announcement of the “bilateral agreement” that would, over a dozen years, would spread $180 billion across the country.

The numbers just kept on rolling: $8.4 billion nationally in phase one! $11.8 billion in Ontario over a decade! Total value in Ontario of $31 billion!

The numbers get smaller when they filter down to Peterborough, and more familiar.

MP Maryam Monsef and MPP Jeff Leal on Friday issued new releases about the $56 million over the coming decade for special accessible city buses, “smart apps” for riders and a new bus garage.

That’s an average of $5.6 million a year from the new joint infrastructure fund.

Which is actually very similar, although seemingly less generous, than the $5.4 million Monsef announced one year ago at the old bus garage.

Leal was there on behalf of the province, since the money was being paid through the Canada-Ontario Public Infrastructure Fund.

If that sounds suspiciously close to the new bilateral Investment Canada fund, it should.

Lots of the money announced last April under one fund and this March under another goes to the same projects.

Two years ago in March 2016 Monsef was at the bus garage to cut a ribbon in six new handicapped buses. They were financed in part from an annual federal grant that shares gas tax revenue with municipalities. Peterborough’s cut was $4.7 million

As was pointed out, that money had been flowing every year since 2005. $39 million in 12 years!

“Through the federal Gas Tax Fund, we are enabling communities across the country to make informed decisions about their infrastructure investments and how best to spend federal dollars, Monsef said in

March 2016.

Ontario has also been paying out a share of its gas tax revenue since 2005. Last year Peterborough got $1.7 million.

Add the grants together and the city got $6.5 million last year in gas tax grants, which have to be spent on public transit projects.

Put that together with the brand new Investing in Canada infrastructure extravaganza and Peterborough’s prize is, wait for it, $12.1 million a year! That’s $121 million in a decade!

Or not.

No matter how many times it is announced, the total doesn’t change. There will be something in the range of $6 million for local public transit, about the same as always.

It is welcome money.

If it came without strings city council would likely choose to spend some of it in areas other than the bus system, but that’s not the way the system works.