Mayor charges personal credit card to secure steel delivery

Prime Minister Stephen Harper was set to deliver a quarterly report on Monday, September 27 that would give some indication to show that the economic stimulus fund is materializing into construction projects.

Lately, the opposition parties have been complaining that monies from the $47-billion economic stimulus package announced earlier this year is not being distributed fast enough and projects are being held up.

However, in a Globe and Mail report, Canada’s Ministry of Infrastructure, John Baird, responded that that much of the money is spent in preparatory work such as engineering design. In other words, the money is already trickling down to benefit the Canadian economy before shovels go into the ground.

Material shortages are also holding up construction in some cases. In Huntsville, Ontario, the mayor put thousands of dollars on his own personal credit card to guarantee delivery of steel for an $18.5-million expansion to a community centre in the town. The federal funding came through one month later, but without that guarantee the project might not have been ready in time for the G8 Summit that is being held in Huntsville in Northern Ontario next June. (Prime Minister Harper has also recently announced that the Huntsville event will actually be expanded to a G20 meeting.)

The federal government has said that 1,000 of 2,700 projects approved are under way, and 300 are due to go into construction before the end of the year.