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NWT infrastructure spending phase complete

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While it’s being reported the federal government has only spent half of its new infrastructure budget, NWT MP Michael McLeod says the territory has got its full share of the money.

“Some big-ticket items are out there that we’re still waiting for, that we expect in the next little while,” says McLeod.

He says the NWT can expect investments through the national Trade and Transportation Corridors Initiative, the National Housing Strategy, Ocean Protection Plan, the Airports Capital Assistance Program and Indigenous-specific housing programs.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) released a report on March 29 stating half of the money set aside for Phase 1 of the federal government’s New Infrastructure Plan, between 2016 and 2018, had not yet been attached to projects.

According to the information it gathered, just $7.2 billion of the plan’s $14.4 billion budget had been earmarked so far.

Ontario has received 32 per cent of the funding, while the NWT and other territories have each just accounted for one per cent of what has been spent.

That said, based on population, the NWT has received close to 2.5 times the amount of spending per capita than the national average. For example, in Ontario $161 per capita has been spent under the infrastructure plan. In the NWT, $1,618 has been spent per capita.

“For Phase 1, aside from the recipients spending the money, I think we’ve done everything that we’ve needed to do,” says McLeod, noting he’s been monitoring the rollout of NWT money since being elected.

Over the last year and a half, a string of funding announcements have been made, the most recent being to transportation systems – road upgrades, culverts, maintenance throughout the territory – in the last six months.

“We rolled out all the transportation money, all the wastewater money, made all the commitments to small communities,” says McLeod.

He also highlighted other projects outside the scope of the infrastructure plan.

“We’ve actually put a lot more money into housing. We announced almost every (Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency, or CanNor) project that there was in the system.”

The office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer is an independent body within the federal government that analyzes government spending plans as well as Canada’s finances and economy.

In looking at the government’s pledged New Infrastructure Plan spending, it submitted information requests to the 32 departments, Crown Corporations and agencies responsible for projects and spending in Phase 1. Its aim was to monitor the rollout of the program and to gauge the impacts it had on economies as it happened, as boosting economies is part of the program’s mandate.

McLeod says there may be issues with certain jurisdictions reporting its investments, which could account for some for the shortfall in the PBO report, and the PBO also noted in its report that most, but not all, of the groups it reached out to responded with information by deadline.

“We’ve done really well in the Northwest Territories getting everything out the door,” says McLeod. “The Government of the Northwest Territories was very well-prepared. They had been working on a number of things that they had had in the system for a while, so it was easy to bring forward. Other jurisdictions haven’t been so fortunate.”