An innovation of the Harper Conservatives according to the Mayor of Charlottetown is "In the past, cities could carry out that pre-engineering work and include those costs as part of the infrastructure funding. But now, if a city goes ahead with that pre-engineering work the city will have to foot the full costs on its own."
It will not surprise me, or anyone that lives outside the urban in the less populated areas of Canada, if there is little of the stimulus dollars coming our way. Only the more affluent municipalities will have an engineer on staff, and as such it is only in these areas where the projects will start. The stimulus package will not have an impact on the recession or cushion Canadians from its harsh realities in poorer municipalities that need it the most.
The combined deregulation of environment and waters acts, and the rules governing access to stimulus funding leads to these two things.. In exchange for much needed jobs and work big industry will be allowed to do what they want with the land and water resulting in our future generations paying the price for clean-up, shoddy work through higher property taxes, utilities, water, consumer goods/services,
Harper is in a win-win situation. He has, through changes in the Navigable Waters Protection Act and Investment Canada Act, managed to put into law his deregulation of government intervention dogma. This at the same time selling people his stimulus package will bring immediate work and jobs.
