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78 per cent of Building Canada Fund announcements made in Conservative ridings
February 05, 2009 OTTAWA – A review of the first billion dollars of project-specific announcements made under the Building Canada Fund since 2007 shows that more than three-quarters of projects were in Conservative-held ridings, Liberal Infrastructure Critic Gerard Kennedy said today. “Given this government’s history of partisan tactics, this latest revelation can hardly be seen as mere coincidence,” said Mr. Kennedy. “Mr. Harper continues to erode his credibility – particularly in his approach to infrastructure funding – with these kinds of practices.” Of specific infrastructure projects announced across Canada in 2007 and 2008, 77.8 per cent of them were in Conservative ridings (see attached backgrounder). In contrast, the Conservatives represent only 46.4 per cent of the ridings in Canada. “It’s bad enough that the Conservatives sat on billions of dollars of earmarked infrastructure funds while the economy was suffering and Canadians were losing their jobs, but now we find out that of those funds they plan to dispense, they made sure they took care of their own political backyards first,” said Mr. Kennedy. “This is the worst form of pork-barrel politics, and it’s no way to run a federation. Federal funding must flow fairly across regions and between communities regardless of political support,” he said. Mr. Kennedy said that it is for reasons like this that Liberals have required accountability reports in March, June and December to be tabled in Parliament showing how much money has been spent and where. In the first year following the launch of the $8.8-billion Building Canada Fund, the Conservative government flowed zero funding to infrastructure projects. Worse, last week officials at Infrastructure Canada admitted that of the $1.5 billion announced in its first two years of budgeted spending, only $80 million has flowed for municipal infrastructure projects across the country. “Putting the government on probation as we have done is our way of ensuring that Mr. Harper’s budget allocates money where it is needed most – and is not simply used as a political tool to gain votes,” said Mr. Kennedy. To view the backgrounder, click here |
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