Calgary Centre MP issues friendly reminder over billions of unused infrastructure dollars

The province and city both have billions of dollars they haven’t touched from the Federal Government.

That from Conservative Calgary Member of Parliament Joan Crockatt who crunched the figures and issued a release Friday.

She’s calling this a “friendly reminder” and is hoping Premier Notley and Mayor Nenshi will be able to fast-track some flood mitigation with the unused funds.

“I get calls from my constituents of course wanting to know what we’re doing on the flood file and flood mitigation and we did make some considerable changes federally to have a bunch of new money that was available for flood mitigation but it’s up to the province to access that money. So when I looked at the numbers just recently when they came out, I found that we actually have 3.2 billion dollars that’s been allocated to Alberta, so that’s the entire province as part of this major infrastructure program that we’re doing across Canada. It’s called the ‘New Building Canada Fund’ and it is the largest and longest federal infrastructure program in Canada’s history.”

Crockatt fully admits normally you wouldn’t see this type of money available from Ottawa, they opened the doors last year and changed the criteria so they could use some of the dollars for flood mitigation.

“I don’t fault the Notley government,” she said. “As we all know we’ve had a lot of political upheaval in Alberta lately, an election and a change of government, so I’m just waving the flag to them.”

The Federal Government has also reached out to Infrastructure Minister Brian Mason to make sure he knows the money is available.

According to the local M.P., most other provinces will have shovels in the ground this summer for their money allocated but to date, Alberta hasn’t used any of the fund.

And it’s not just the provincial government, according to Crockatt, there’s still $477-million available through the Gas Tax Fund for the city of Calgary, that also has yet to be claimed.

Crockatt says the city can also use their funds for flood mitigation.

“Alberta’s economy could really use a boost right now and here’s some money that’s sitting out there available for them to be available to use for exactly this reason,” she said. “Let’s get these dollars flowing and get shovels in the ground, let your MLA know, let your city councillor know.”

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