The Trudeau Liberals are making another end-run on the provinces in their bid to spend infrastructure money, citing problems with getting projects off the ground as a reason to deliver $2.2 billion more directly to cities.
Tuesday's budget announced a one-time top-up to the federal gas-tax fund, which sends money directly to municipalities each year to help cover the costs of work on roads, bridges, water systems and other local infrastructure needs.Although the Liberals have publicly touted a renewed dialogue with provincial and territorial governments, there are private frustrations about infrastructure issues, some of which are laid bare in internal documents previously obtained by The Canadian Press.
"What we've seen is we've not been able to get as many projects done in some places, places like Ontario, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, New Brunswick, as we'd like, so we've put a municipal infrastructure top-up to make sure that more projects get done across our country," Morneau said. The Liberals' infrastructure plan was a cornerstone of their successful 2015 election campaign. Once in office, they created a decade-long plan that was meant to double federal infrastructure spending to more than $186 billion. How successful the plan has been is an area of contention between the Liberals and the parliamentary budget watchdog, who most recently questioned anew whether increases in federal spending have created jobs as the government promised.
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