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When it rains in Arnprior, Ottawa residents know it. At least they do if they happen to venture into the Ottawa River, which is where Arnprior’s sewage inevitably ends up after a heavy rainfall.
Like too many Canadian municipalities (Ottawa among them), Arnprior has a sewage treatment system that is broken. When the federal government, in its recent budget, announced more than a billion dollars of infrastructure money to fix problems just like Arnprior’s, it is not surprising town officials were optimistic they could soon bring their sewage treatment system into the 21st century.
They even had a project that could be ready to go quickly — in July, a few months after the approval process, but, still, pretty close to the “shovel ready” requirement. But when the money was doled out, Arnprior was not on the list, leaving town officials perplexed and frustrated. “What’s going on here?” Mayor Terry Gibeau wondered during an interview with a Citizen reporter. Gibeau, understandably, has questions about how the process works. And all Canadians should be concerned that Arnprior gets some answers.
Spending billions of dollars to rebuild infrastructure and stimulate the economy is not an exact science, to be sure. Nor is it as easy as it sounds. To his credit, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty made that clear shortly after the budget was tabled earlier this year. Mistakes will be made, Flaherty said, but they will be worth it.
Flaherty may be right that mistakes tend to happen when such vast sums of money are involved (although Barack Obama, in a different approach, has lately been proclaiming that the financial times and the vast sums of money involved in stimulus spending mean there is “no room for error”). But that doesn’t mean steps shouldn’t be taken to prevent those mistakes.
Arnprior’s experience is a signal that efforts are not being made to ensure federal infrastructure dollars are spent in a transparent and reasonable way.
The problem with Arnprior’s experience is that town officials are not sure why they didn’t receive federal infrastructure funding and what, if anything, they could have done differently. As Gibeau told the Citizen, the guidelines for programs to fund infrastructure are often unclear and change without notice. In other words, he fears money is doled out on an arbitrary basis or according to rules that are either non-existent or unclear.
Which is a formula for abuse.
It may just be that there is limited money to spend and that not all deserving projects can receive funding, as an Industry Canada spokesman suggested.
That makes sense, but without clear guidelines showing how projects are selected and which ones get priority, people who are turned down despite having a deserving project will wonder what is going on.
Gibeau calls the system of funding infrastructure a “game of second-guessing.” Others might wonder whether it isn’t a political game. More transparency would answer some of those concerns.
Sewage treatment systems that work are crucial. Canada needs a coherent plan to bring such systems in Arnprior, in Ottawa, and around the country, up to date as quickly as possible.
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