Highway 28, the regional water line and Gurneyville Road/ 34 Street topped the list of priorities both the MD of Bonnyville of Town of Bonnyville council's presented to MP Brian Storseth last week.
Storseth was in town on Jan. 14 to meet separately with both councils to discuss their priorities ahead of the upcoming federal budget.
“I try to meet with all of my municipalities around this time of year because it is after their budget process has finished and before our budget process is done,” said Storseth, the federal MP for Westlock-St.Paul. “I want an opportunity to get together with them (and) find out what their projects and priorities are so that I can take that back to Ottawa and see if we can find some (funding) that fits.”
One of the more promising topics brought up in the short discussion with the federal MP was the state of Highway 28. With Storseth continually hearing complaints over the state of the highway for the past few years he feels now is the time it can be addressed.
“I have met several times with municipalities in Edmonton and in St. Paul. I also worked with industry and First Nations to try and find the priorities in our area. The one thing that we were able to drive forward is that Highway 28 has to be a priority,” said Storseth. “The municipalities are on side with that, the province is on side with that and I believe the federal government is on side with that.”
Storseth mentioned that if other parts of the country don't use their earmarked 2015 federal funds, he would do his best to try and get some of that money reallocated up into fixing Highway 28.
“If there isn't a problem in say the south, we want to take the extra money and put it up into Highway 28,” said Storseth. “If we have that many municipalities agreeing (that Highway 28 is a problem), we have to do something about it.”
Town Council also approached Storseth with ideas for alternate funding for Highway 28 seeing as it is a major road that impacts many.
“We did talk more about Highway 28, more so from an alternate funding perspective because the government does provide funding to the province,” said Bonnyville Mayor Gene Sobolewksi.
More importantly was the health care aspect (of Highway 28) with our hospital so undersized for the type of services that it is providing now. We know that there are some transfer payments available.”
As for the more local priorities put on Storseth's agenda, Gurneyville Road and 34 Street were listed as construction projects the Town and MD would like help with.
“We are looking to explore to see whether we can get a portion of Gurneyville Road and 34 St. wrapped up and called some sort of regional initiative and see if there is an opportunity (for funding) there,” said Sobolewski, mentioning that Gurneyville is a high priority for the MD and 34 St. is an even higher priority for the Town.
Reeve Ed Rondeau also mentioned the Regional Water Line, feeling as though it was time the region saw some funding for the project that has been discussed for the past few years.
Both Council's also asked a series of questions regarding the Building Canada Fund, and when the agreement for the grant process would finally be signed.
The $14-billion fund announced by the Federal government last year was put in place to support projects of national, regional and local importance that promote economic growth, job creation and productivity.
Since its original announcement the plan has stalled and funding agreements between the Federal government and Alberta government has yet to be reached.
Storseth cleared up the questions surrounding the Fund and provided both Council's with a glimmer of hope that funding might be coming to the region.
“In our riding with over 20 municipalities. I have always tried to go west, and east to make sure everybody gets their fair share (of federal funding),” said Storseth. “Its your guys turn this year. (The MD) and the Town of Bonnyville.”
It won't be easy to get those funds up to the MD and the Town of Bonnyville, as Storseth feels the tight window before the election combined with the plummeting oil prices could cause problems.
“Certainly it is going to be harder to get a ‘yes' out of government when the province of Alberta has a $6-billion hole from the reduction in oil prices. The Government of Canada has significant reductions in its budget from the reduction in oil prices as well,” said Storseth. “We put a plan together when we went into deficit three or four years ago. We have been pretty conservative with our projections. We have always been able to hit out targets. I believe we are going to continue to hit our targets and get out of deficit this year.”
Storseth expects funding for health and education to stay the same, but is unsure exactly how much he will have for the other projects in the region.
“We covered the whole gamut but our priorities are definitely still Highway 28, the regional water line, which we are hopefully going to get word about in March, and Gurneyville Road/ 34 St,” said Sobolewski.
“It was very positive. I wasn't anything new but for us the information we got with the Building Canada Fund was very insightful.”
