Stimulus package supports 23,000 projects, is on track, Flaherty says
Posted September 27, 2010 2:12 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
OTTAWA – The federal Tories say their $62-billion stimulus package has saved or created almost 200,000 jobs since the beginning of 2009.
In its sixth update on how well the stimulus package is working, the government says it has now committed funding to 23,000 infrastructure projects across the country.
The report says the plan is on track, and has been responsible for supporting much of Canada’s recovery.
“Canada’s economic action plan has helped Canada through the worst recession since the 1930s,” Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said in Montreal.
Ottawa has not actually counted the jobs created by its array of programs, improvements to Employment Insurance and various tax cuts.
Rather, in an annex in the report, the government explains that it has estimated the job creation by using a combination of mathematical models and assumptions based on history.
“This is a government that counts signs more carefully than it counts the unemployed,” said Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff.
Indeed, the Conservative government has 18 departments and agencies tracking the installation of signage on a weekly basis, and has tracked and recorded more than 8,500 Economic Action Plan signs across Canada in the last year.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper himself is getting briefings on the sign count, according to documents obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act.
Now, the Liberals say all the sign-counting and politicking has led to delays in issuing federal project money.
The opposition parties, as well as municipal and provincial governments, are asking Ottawa to be show some flexibility as the stimulus funding draws to a close.
Most of the flow of infrastructure money will be cut off on March 31, the end of the federal government’s fiscal year. Then, Flaherty has vowed to turn his attentions to deficit-cutting, and not spending.
But municipalities fear that some of their infrastructure work will not be wrapped up by then, and they will be left either paying the extra costs or stopping the projects mid-stream.
“Kids can’t swim in an 80 per cent-completed swimming pool,” Liberal finance critic Scott Brison said.
“It is ludicrous for a federal government to be so obsessed with the signs, and putting the signs up, that they are neglecting actually completing the projects.”
Flaherty and his cabinet colleagues have been suggesting for about two weeks that they are looking for ways to be flexible, but in extraordinary circumstances only. But in the same breath, they insist that the funding will stop March 31.
The finance minister repeated the two-pronged message again on Monday.
“The government is focused on finishing the job of implementing the economic action plan. We will also continue to monitor economic development closely and will take action as necessary to protect the economic recovery,” he said.
The government report said the stimulus plan will deliver $22 billion in infrastructure spending in the 2010-11 fiscal year. The federal money will be complemented by $7 billion from other levels of government.
Of the 23,000 projects that Ottawa has committed to, 97 per cent are either finished or well underway, the report says.
