Some rural prairie roads could receive a facelift this election year as the federal government tries to boost the construction industry with an injection of new infrastructure money.
Ottawa is offering a $425 million, one-year extension to the three-year infrastructure program that helped get the Liberals elected in 1993.
It will require provinces and local governments to put up matching dollars to pry loose the federal funds.
If all the money is taken, the result will be a three-government, $1.275 billion program.
Prairie rural municipality representatives said last week they hope to get some of the money to upgrade the deteriorating rural grid.
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“We sure are hoping some of those funds come here,” said Ken Engel, executive director of the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities. “We can use them. We won’t turn them down.”
In Alberta, it is the same story.
Roelof Heinen of Picture Butte, president of the Alberta Association of Municipal Districts and Counties, said some local governments might have a problem coming up with their portion of the money.
Still, he said increased grain truck traffic is taking a toll on country roads.
“They certainly need work and this program certainly will help,” he said.
Saskatchewan premier Roy Romanow said he would use the program to fix roads.
“Without a good road system in Saskatchewan we’re not going to have an efficient grain industry, for example, or any other haulage industry which is required to get our products out to market,” he told reporters. “This will be the Saskatchewan priority, but I’m not so locked into it that it should be roads only.”
According to a federal Treasury Board spokesperson, it will be up to provinces and local governments to set priorities for the spending.
Ottawa’s priority is to get the projects going soon so they can be done in the 1997 construction season.
“The government expects the construction industry to pick up next year, so it is important that this money be used this year as a bridge,” said Daniel Lavoie.
He said Treasury Board president Marcel MassŽ has told the provinces he would prefer the money be used on projects that upgrade existing infrastructure like roads or sewage systems, rather than on building new structures.
The rural caucus of the governing Liberal party has lobbied to have a portion of any new infrastructure program dedicated to rural projects.
Provinces make decision
Lavoie said that is not part of the federal requirement for the provinces and the program.
“The provinces have to decide where it fits into their priorities,” he said. “If there is a greater focus on roads, that is where it will go.”
The rural representatives said their associations will negotiate with provincial governments to set priorities and decide how much money flows to rural areas.
In Saskatchewan, Engel said he is hoping for the same type of one-third rural, two-thirds urban split that was worked out for the first program.
Romanow said the province and municipalities should both be able to participate. Their contributions would be about $17 million each.
However, Saskatchewan municipalities face a $20 million cut in grants from the province this year. “If it would impair the municipalities obviously we’d have to take a look at it because it would be counterproductive to have two of the three partners able to come to the table with sufficient funds to achieve the objective and the third can’t,” he said.
In Alberta, Heinen said his association would be content with the per capita split used in the past by the provincial government. That would send approximately 20 percent of the Alberta portion to rural areas.
Meanwhile, the Reform party has opposed the announced extension of the infrastructure program.
John Williams, MP for St. Albert, Alta., issued a statement acknowledging it is money which municipalities will have difficulty rejecting.
But he said they should. “A tax break for all Canadians would be a much smarter route towards job creation.”
