Terry asks local leaders for wish list

There were many promises made by the federal Liberals which helped ensure their October 2015 federal election victory.

A promise to pump a massive amount of money into Canada’s infrastructure to kick start the economy was one of them.

A huge one.

The Liberals announced $125 billion will be spent over 10 years on transit, social infrastructure and green infrastructure.

More details will be announced within the Trudeau government’s first budget, to be released in March.

Criteria to determine how much funding will go to each municipality will be revealed shortly after, Sault MP Terry Sheehan told SooToday.

“We have such a deficit in infrastructure because of a lack of attention to it over the recent years.”

Sheehan is confident the Sault will get its fair share of infrastructure funding.

“The Liberal government did pre-budget consultations in which we were fortunate to have the finance minister’s parliamentary secretary Francoise-Philippe Champagne in Sault Ste. Marie to meet with various businesses and community organizations to talk about the budget, and it was great because the Sault was the only place in Northern Ontario (to have a high-ranking finance ministry official pay a pre-budget visit).”

“We’ve heard from constituents through e-mail, online and social media, on Twitter and Facebook (as to what people want to see in the budget).”

Sheehan said he has had a recent roundtable discussion in his Sault constituency office with Sault MPP David Orazietti and Sault Mayor Christian Provenzano regarding a number of issues, including the community’s infrastructure needs.

“They didn’t define an exact ‘ask’ for me but I told them they need to put their thinking caps on,” Sheehan said.

“There is a lot of infrastructure that needs attention in this city, like roads and bridges and aqueducts and other facilities, so I’m going to leave it up to them to provide their priorities for the riding to me, and my job is to open the door to the infrastructure minister and the finance minister’s offices.”

Sheehan said he has advised officials in the riding to prepare a list of “shovel-ready” projects which could receive infrastructure funding after the budget, adding there will be more than one round of infrastructure funding announcements.

“This is historic spending and it will be done over a couple of years.”

The Sault MP said he has had a recent, productive breakfast meeting with Amarjeet Sohi, infrastructure and communities minister, in which he briefed Sohi about the Sault and its needs, and is looking forward to a follow up meeting next week with one of Sohi’s key staffers to keep the Sault on the minister’s radar.

Sheehan did not identify any specific infrastructure needs he would personally like to see fulfilled for the Sault.

“I want to see a bottom up approach instead of a top down approach, I want to make sure all parts of my riding have an opportunity to express what they feel is important.”

A city councillor from 2003 to 2015, Sheehan said “obviously I know the riding really well and I probably will not be surprised when I get their list.”

“My understanding is that new infrastructure requests and repairs to existing infrastructure will be entertained.”

The Liberals said they will go into deficit in order to carry out their election promises, but Sheehan said they “absolutely” have a plan to get out of deficit once the spending is over.

“We have to have economic growth which will help us to get back into a fiscally balanced area, if we don’t we have that spiral that keeps us spinning down and down.”

“If the economy doesn’t start growing again we’re in trouble.”