Conservatives dole out cash to community groups as election looms
In what a taxpayer lobby and opposition parties say is a blatant attempt to influence voters in advance of this fall’s election, the Harper government announced Friday the first of many capital grants to upgrade Alberta community facilities.
The $46 million allocated to the four western provinces as part of a program to celebrate the country’s sesquicentennial in 2017 won’t actually be available to groups until next April, but non-profits and municipalities hoping for a share of the federal cash had just four weeks after May’s announcement of the initiative to prepare and submit detailed proposals.
Now that officials at Western Economic Diversification Canada have completed their assessment of the applications, Minister of State Michelle Rempel and other Tory MPs will spend the coming weeks announcing which projects will get money.
“The need for this type of funding is no secret,” said Rempel, “and I’m very proud of the fact our government was able to put together a program ... that tied it in beautifully to the 150th anniversary of our country.”
But the Alberta director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation isn’t buying the federal Conservatives’ line and she says voters shouldn’t either.
“We have to ask at what cost are we having these great photo ops for the government and is it a good birthday present for the country to be spending money we don’t have on hastily-selected projects,” said Paige MacPherson.
Rebecca Dakin, a spokeswoman for the Federation of Calgary Communities, said most government grant programs have multiple intakes and longer lead times that give association boards much longer than a month to put together an application. “It was a very tight window,” she said.
Larry Leach, a member of the Crossroads Community Association executive, said his group needs $40,000 to replace an aging furnace and cracked sidewalks at its hall in the city’s northeast.
But Leach said the program deadline made it next to impossible for his volunteer group to put together an application.
“It was just going to take too much time and effort,” he said.
Even the two groups who received grants at Friday’s ceremony said they were caught off guard when the federal government announced the program in late May.
While the Lake Bonavista Community Association is grateful for the $45,000 it received for improved signage and a new sound system, board president Sheila Taylor said she had to convene an emergency meeting to meet the federal deadline.
“We had to really scramble to get our application in on time.”
Doug Caswell, the administrator with the Marlborough Park Community Association, said his group had to decide quickly to ask for the $37,600 it got to replace the flooring in its community centre.
“(The deadline) didn’t give you a lot of time to consider a vast number of projects,” Caswell said.
“It was like we have this opportunity, what can we do?”
Linda Duncan, Edmonton-Strathcona MP and NDP critic for the western economic diversification portfolio, said the tight timelines discriminated against smaller volunteer groups.
“The very entities who are most desperate for support are the least able to apply,” Duncan said.
“It was outrageous the way this was rolled out ... and it’s basically an election slush fund.”
While an audience of future voters in wet bathing suits were about the only ones who attended Friday’s announcement by Calgary East MP Deepak Obhrai at the Lake Bonavista facility, program rules will ensure their parents are reminded of the federal government’s largesse every time they pick them up and drop them off at the centre.
Grant recipients are required to bear the cost now of making signage to federal standards and to keep it displayed through April 2018 so that Canadians can “easily identify” projects.
An analysis of a similar program by the Globe and Mail newspaper revealed that the $150 million doled out to groups across the country went disproportionately to ridings represented by MPs from the governing party.
Seats represented by Conservatives received an average of $561,3332 for six projects, while those held by opposition members got $379,337 for four projects.
Rempel said this time things will be different and department officials insisted a “merit-based process” was used to choose recipients.
“I would invite you to look at the results of the funds as they are announced here in Western Canada,” Rempel said.
“I think you will be pleasantly surprised.”
Department officials did not answer Herald questions about whether government MPs were involved in selecting successful recipients.
But Obhrai was quick to remind Caswell while he was speaking with a reporter after the ceremony that this was not the first time he had intervened to ensure the hall in his constituency received federal money.
“I gave you money for last time, too,” Obhrai interjected. “You did,” Caswell said. “Deepak’s been very helpful.”