Higgs looking for ways to spend nearly $400M in federal dollars
CBC
Premier Blaine Higgs says the province is looking at ways to allocate hundreds of millions of dollars in infrastructure funding from Ottawa within the year.
It was revealed in last week's budget that $390 million of the funding, which comes from the Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program agreement signed in 2018, is still available.
Projects for the money now have to be identified by the end of March 2023, and the deadline for completion is now 2033 under the revised timelines.
The province has to match the spending on each project, but if the government doesn't identify projects by the deadline, it could lose access to the funding.
Higgs said the types of projects that will qualify for the funding have opened up.
"Ultimately, we have flexibility to use it on buildings, like hospitals or schools, that we're improving their conditions, not all building new so as I understand it," Higgs said at a news conference Wednesday afternoon.
"At this point the flexibility is there to do that and I'm very encouraged by that because it really helps us in the province to make our dollars go further without inventing projects that aren't necessary."
The premier said he is not sure it will be possible to identify all projects by the end of the current fiscal year, but he's hopeful there will be some leeway.
The Premier didn't name specific projects, but noted electric buses and highway upgrades could be possible.
The Union of the Municipalities of New Brunswick is urging the province to use the funding and hopes the new timeline will speed up projects on municipal priority lists.
"We do believe that money is needed," said Dan Murphy, executive director of the UMNB, speaking with CBC's Information Morning Fredericton.
"There's a number of projects that municipalities have submitted over the course of the last couple of years … there's a lot of projects that municipalities believe are priorities, and that we need that partnership from the federal and provincial governments to make that happen."
Murphy mentioned the need for wastewater treatments, upgrades of recreational infrastructure and more.
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