MEEP funding supports three Swift Current area projects
A trio of Swift Current area projects are in various stages of completion after being announced as recipients of Municipal Economic Enhancement Program (MEEP) funding earlier this summer.
A total of just over $2.66 million in MEEP funding was delivered to the three projects as part of $150 million pledged by the provincial government over two years for shovel-ready infrastructure projects across the province. The dollars are being distributed on a per capita basis based on 2016 census population numbers.
The RM of Swift Current #137 received $277,683 for their Grid 630 Bridge Replacement via the Local Roads and Bridges portion of MEEP funding awarded on July 6.
Swift Current’s two projects were unveiled by the City at their June 29 Swift Current City Council meeting, where they received $2.19 million of the $2.3 million needed for their Friesen Street Storm Rehabilitation project. They also received $195,000 in MEEP dollars to support a $950,000 upgrade to the Fairview Arena’s east surface.
On September 9, Swift Current MLA Everett Hindley provided a project update at the Fairview Arena to showcase the benefits of the MEEP funding.
“We just think it’s important to highlight these projects when the work is underway,” Hindley said at last Wednesday’s update.
“I just think it’s important as we talked about with the MEEP Project itself and just the overall $7.5 billion two year economic stimulus plan from the Government of Saskatchewan, it’s important to highlight when this money goes to local communities. Often people will think that these funding projects only end up in the big cities, but in the case of MEEP that’s not the case. It helps out cities, towns, villages, Rural Municipalities all over the province including here in the City of Swift Current and the RM as well. And so therefore I think it’s important that we highlight these projects so the people can see there is being provincial money invested into their communities to help rebound from the global pandemic we’re all experiencing right now.”
Hindley said the province opted to bring back the MEEP program which proved successful in previous years.
“The benefits of the MEEP program I think is that it’s a fairly quick process. And what we were looking for in this round of MEEP, much like the first time when we did it, was to have some projects that were shovel ready. So this was about provincial government providing a program and application process where we go to municipalities and say ‘what do you have that you can do work on right now’. Not that has to go through an engineering phase or feasibility study or all that other stuff, but projects that would be ready to go now, that if we were able to trigger some money for that that you could get going.”
“The one thing that we wanted to ensure throughout this global pandemic is that here in Saskatchewan is that we were putting people back to work. And that’s what MEEP is doing here today.”
The Friesen Street Storm Rehabilitation project will complete the replacement of a portion of the storm sewer which is deteriorating. If the aging infrastructure completely fails up to eight blocks of residents would be left without proper wastewater and water services. The City has just tendered this work.
The Fairview Arena improvement work, which is now 50 per cent completed, involves the installation of a concrete floor to replace the existing sand floor at the east arena. The original header and piping system at over four decades old is also being replaced, and new boards and glass will also be installed.
Hindley noted the MEEP funds were aimed at projects that could be begun quickly to get workers back on the job.
“We were looking for shovel ready projects. There was a reason why we put a deadline on this because we wanted to have these projects starting now, not ones that would take place five years from now, the projects that could start this summer and this fall and get underway immediately.”
Hindley noted that Swift
Current’s project requests to the Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program (ICIP) were too large for the funding that was provided by the federal government. The city had been seeing support for their Integrated Leisure Facility Project along with a Wastewater Collection & Expansion Upgrades Project.
“The disappointing part of that particular project was we were hoping for a larger tranche of money from the federal government. The project for the City of Swift Current is quite a significant one dollar wise,” Hindley said. “In that particular program the amount of funding that was allocated for the entire Province of Saskatchewan was about $15 million, and the ask for the Swift Current project would have far exceeded that amount as part of the a third-a third-a third cost sharing agreement. So that’s why that particular program wasn’t forwarded on to the feds for further consideration just because it was far outside the amount that was available.”