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Originally Posted by sailor734
That's certainly possible. My biggest concern is that there appears to be no acknowledgement of the large discrepancy between the funding amounts for the two cities nor any explanation of why it exists.
The reasons may well be benign and logical but absent any explanation it's only natural to wonder about what role back room political influence played. Given the large disparity in power and influence within government between Dominic LeBlanc and Ginette Petitpas-Taylor on one hand and Wayne Long on the other I think such thoughts are only natural.
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Yeah all Trudeau said when asked by media how they came to that amount was that "There is a lot of hard work and a lot of partnership going into looking at what could actually be done, what is the right level.
"We came down with an agreement around $9.18 million for the Housing Accelerator Fund, which we feel is the right level to really enable Saint John to accelerate to get more homes built faster, to get people into those homes in an affordable way, and we're really pleased with that announcement.".
The mayor said she is not turning her nose up to $9.18 million, that’s pretty good.
Also separate from this particular conversation, I want to mention on here that at the growth committee meeting 2 days ago, councillor Gerry Lowe voiced that “I think we should compare ourselves to ourselves. Saint John is not Moncton … we’re a different city altogether.”
“We’re an industrial city where we’ve gotta get changes in taxes. When we get changes in taxes, we would compete with anybody. Simple as that.”
Deputy Mayor John Mackenzie, who chairs the committee, had agreed with Lowe and said he is “very impressed” with where Saint John’s numbers are trending.
“There’s nothing wrong with those numbers whatsoever. We’re talking about growth and we’re talking about health growth.”
I agree with his opinion, we shouldn’t keep comparing ourselves to other cities. We are all different, and I agree with if taxes were changed, the city would be a lot better financially/economically.
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I just don't get too focused on this big competition of "who's outperforming the others", and genuinely don't really understand the need to be. I like to see and celebrate any and all growth from any city or community. We all have our own differences and challenges, and will grow at our own varying paces. At the end of the day, I myself don't really care who's "#1 in the province". I like where I live, and love seeing the growth happening here.
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