Higgs looking for ways to spend nearly $400M in federal dollars
CBC
Premier Blaine Higgs says the province is looking at ways to allocate hundreds of millions of dollars in infrastructure funding from Ottawa within the year.
It was revealed in last week's budget that $390 million of the funding, which comes from the Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program agreement signed in 2018, is still available.
Projects for the money now have to be identified by the end of March 2023, and the deadline for completion is now 2033 under the revised timelines.
The province has to match the spending on each project, but if the government doesn't identify projects by the deadline, it could lose access to the funding.
Higgs said the types of projects that will qualify for the funding have opened up.
"Ultimately, we have flexibility to use it on buildings, like hospitals or schools, that we're improving their conditions, not all building new so as I understand it," Higgs said at a news conference Wednesday afternoon.
"At this point the flexibility is there to do that and I'm very encouraged by that because it really helps us in the province to make our dollars go further without inventing projects that aren't necessary."
The premier said he is not sure it will be possible to identify all projects by the end of the current fiscal year, but he's hopeful there will be some leeway.
The Premier didn't name specific projects, but noted electric buses and highway upgrades could be possible.
The Union of the Municipalities of New Brunswick is urging the province to use the funding and hopes the new timeline will speed up projects on municipal priority lists.
"We do believe that money is needed," said Dan Murphy, executive director of the UMNB, speaking with CBC's Information Morning Fredericton.
"There's a number of projects that municipalities have submitted over the course of the last couple of years … there's a lot of projects that municipalities believe are priorities, and that we need that partnership from the federal and provincial governments to make that happen."
Murphy mentioned the need for wastewater treatments, upgrades of recreational infrastructure and more.
Fort William First Nation is opposing a planned redevelopment of the Ontario Power Generation's (OPG) 117 year old Kakabeka Falls Generating Station, which is located in their traditional territory.
A building that sits at the corner of Sussex Street and Brunswick Avenue has had many lives over the last century — being a church, a school and offices. Now it's set to become housing, at a time when the city sorely needs it.
A Waterloo, Ont., elementary school principal will be sentenced in the new year after pleading guilty to child sexual exploitation charges following a joint investigation that involved the London, Toronto and Waterloo police services.
Students at UPEI have let their student union know what they want from the province this fiscal year, and those priorities are reflected in a 2024-2025 advocacy document brought to the legislature on Wednesday.
Larger communities in the N.W.T. will soon see a boost in their territorial funding to maintain infrastructure and deliver services — like water and waste management — but the increase still falls short of what communities need.
The toxic drug crisis has taken more than 47,000 lives in Canada since 2016 and the synthetic opioid fentanyl has become a household name. But now, what's believed to be an even more potent class of synthetic drugs is showing up in drug busts across the country: nitazenes.
The Liberal government and the NDP have agreed to introduce a two-month GST vacation on certain items before the holiday season, Radio-Canada has learned.
Veterinarians are warning Londoners to make sure their dogs are vaccinated and keeping clean after a deadly virus outbreak was declared in London this week.
Registered nurses rallied in St. John's Wednesday as part of a week-long convention, again calling on the Newfoundland and Labrador government to create permanent solutions to staff shortages and workplace violence.
New poll results released by Narrative Research suggest the Progressive Conservatives are heading into Tuesday's provincial election with a commanding lead over their political rivals.
A measles outbreak in New Brunswick is set to push Canada's annual case count to the highest it's been in five years, highlighting how infectious the disease is and how low vaccination rates have allowed it to take hold, says an immunologist.