The federal government may have just blinked.
After months of saying infrastructure projects would not be funded beyond a deadline of March 31, 2011, the government has now raised the possibility that funding will not necessarily be cut off on that date after all.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper said last week in Saskatchewan, where flooding has caused delays in numerous works, that the government would not be unreasonable in expecting projects to be finished by the deadline.
He also said “a final decision” has not been made whether March 31st really will be the drop-dead date.
And that’s music to the ears of City Councillor Jim McManaman — the Chair of the Regional Recreation Centre steering committee in Owen Sound.
McManaman says all the city has ever asked is for a chance to make a case for a deadline extension, given the unforeseen soil and water problems that pushed the completion date for the 38.6-million dollar project back a full year.
The city pushed forward with the project anyway despite knowing that a delay could cost Owen Sound an additional $8 million if the federal and provincial governments declined to pay for work done beyond the deadline.
That would almost double the city’s financial obligation to the project.
But municipal officials have lobbied both upper levels of government, with the help of Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound MP Larry Miller and MPP Bill Murdoch, to look at the city’s case for an extension.
The efforts began to pay off recently when Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty said his government would not end funding for projects that are well on their way to completion by next March.
The fact is, many hundreds or even thousands of projects across the country are in danger of not being completed by the deadline.
City officials have believed that this would make it unlikely that the feds would cut all of them off, given that the pledged infrastructure money was intended to kickstart local economies.
That’s happened in Owen Sound, and the city intends to keep pushing ahead toward completion.
McManaman says it will help that a new construction timeline has been closely adhered to – things are on schedule and on budget.
McManaman says changes are rapidly taking place at the construction site at Victoria Park.
Excavation work is all but complete, foundation work is well underway and the steel structure will start to go up soon.
