Economic Action Plan for Kingston
This morning I went hiking with my two fierce creatures at Lemoine Point – a fantastic and little known hiking area just west of the airport. On my way towards the point, I noticed a few signs proclaiming the presence of Canada’s Economic Action Plan. I could not read what each project entailed, and so, upon returning home I searched the interwebs to do a quick investigation.
According to the Canada Economic Action Plan website, a few projects in Kingston have qualified for stimulus funding, and thus, presumably they are being ‘fast tracked’ for completion. Otherwise, very little information is available on the City of Kingston’s website, save for a couple of reports to council that mention stimulus funding. Specifically, the report to council from the meeting on September 15th notes that $60 million was requested from the Infrastructure Stimulus Fund, while only $21 million was actually granted for use on projects such as the John Counter Blvd expansion. This got me thinking, assuming you agree that stimulus funds are a necessary evil of the recession, which projects should be funded in the Limestone City? Are the projects identified by Kingston City Council at the top of your priority list?
Cross posted at juniorannex. Special thanks to M.Gifford for today’s image of the Action Plan signage.
I think it's great that the government wants to provide funds under the "Canada's Economic Action Plan" banner to improve Kingston's infrastructure but I always have this fishy feeling whenever I see the commercials on television and the signage around the city. Isn't it a bit odd that we have to be sold on the idea of a plan to stimulate our economy? I'm not interested in getting into a political partisan discussion here but I thought I would voice my concern to see if anyone else feels similarly and perhaps figure out why we do.
That said, expanding John Counter Blvd would be beneficial for me to get around the city when travelling west to east (which is the majority of my travel). Improvements to the Montreal Centre are badly needed (I have often thought that's a bit of an embarrassing facility). Funding for the Queen's Centre for Performing Arts will probably bring more jobs to Kingston which is certainly welcome. I do wish that there was more funding being provided not only in Kingston but across Canada to projects that will help to develop Canada's green economy so that we can become a world leader in that industry.
The feeling I had after looking at the rather scarce signs dotted around the city, and having scanned city council minutes was one of low expectations. I rather hoped that the City would have had considerably more projects worthy of infrastructure stimulus funding than those it put forward. It’s not as if there aren’t a few roads that couldn’t use fixing – or recreation facilities (soccer pitches, swimming pools) which could use upgrades. Anyway whether or not one is for stimulus injects, surely our council could have come up with a bit more in the way of projects worthy of consideration.
My picks: parks and recreation facilities – new or upgrades…
cheers, junior
@skevbo I think you meant to say Memorial Centre rather than Montreal Centre…unless you are talking about the Megaffin Park Arena off of Montreal Street. Both have seen better days.
Call me crazy, but I think that these Action Plan signs are a farce. The government is funnelling stimulus money into shovel ready projects, so unless your park, recreation facility or other essential upgrade was already in the works, it’s won’t happen as a part of the Action Plan. Sure they’re spending more money, and some of it might be in the right places, but in the end, it won’t make a dent in creating enough jobs, or addressing real infrastructure deficiencies. The only people benefiting from the Action Plan are the folks creating and putting up the signs.
@Harvey Yes, I totally meant the Memorial Centre! I get the same feeling as you, these were projects already in mind before the recession. For the most part I fail to see how jobs are being created other than in construction.
One of the projects listed for downtown Kingston is to make the “Customs building” more accessible (actually it’s listed twice). That’s a nice idea for people who have difficulty accessing buildings, but is that an effective way to stimulate the economy?