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Old Posted Mar 19, 2013, 8:52 PM
RyeJay RyeJay is offline
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Join Date: Apr 2011
Posts: 3,086
Quote:
Originally Posted by OUIR@random View Post
I still really do wonder where they will the money for this. Really.
This is alot of money for a city of this size. Alot.

Time will tell and I DO hope we get it.
I share your hopes.

Nevertheless, you raise an excellent question.

Although this is a lot of money for a city the size of Moncton, one of the published narratives attempting to explain why Moncton is entitled to this federal stimulus is because Halifax received fedeal investment for the Nova Centre.

This is an unfair comparison, since Halifax has met two prerequisites to justify federal funding for the Nova Centre:

1) The implementation of the downtown urban planning legislation HRM_by_Design. (Moncton has no planning legislation legalised).

2) Halifax submitted their funding application and business case for the Nova Centre within the time frame specified by the federdal government. (Moncton has done neither).

The downtown events centre in Moncton could possibly receive provincial funding, but we should keep in mind that provincial funding is, in fact, federal funding, since the Province of New Brunswick is a have-not (just like Nova Scotia) and stays afloat via equalisation payments from Ottawa.

Ottawa's main criticism of the proposed Moncton Centre is that Moncton's downtown is still in the process of being de-centralised due to expanding suburbs and due to (extremely poor) provincial decisions. The relocation of Moncton High School, for instance, is going to cause people (and their money) to relocate out of (and far away from) the downtown. It is currently cheaper to develop in the suburbs, so future commercial and residential projects will prefer suburban locations regardless of a downtown events centre -- until, of course, the City of Moncton implements sustainable urban planning and tax reform, and truly commits to the downtown.

Why should Ottawa subsidise this events centre twice -- only to have to come back years down the road and subsidise the centre a third time (and possibly more) in order for it to remain open?

Giving attention to federal politics, I've noticed that the Harper Government has been desperate to fulfill its election promise of a balanced budget by 2015. Canada's economy is slowly, so in order to even fake a balanced budget the federal government is making drastic cuts to areas of the public sector. All of this will further slow Canada's economy in subsequent fiscal years; however, on paper, they may, during this one moment, say they've reached a balanced budget.
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