P3 Rec Centres in Calgary-24-Nov-11
Hell hath no fury like a politician scorned. Even our diplomatic mayor has his knickers in a bunch today and one alderman actually dared to ask the question: what do our Conservative MPs really do for us?
The reason for this little political uprising is the denial of funding for three rec centres in Calgary through a federal public-private partnership fund. The federal funding would have covered 25 per cent of the cost of the projects a significant sum of money ($99 million).
Adding insult to injury the city already tossed out $3.1 million just to apply for the grants and was apparently assured that the proposal was on its way to approval.
During Nenshi’s press conference to say just how pissed off the city was about all of this he showed a screen capture of the PPP Canada website highlighting rec centres as one of the approved areas for funding. Shortly after the government removed that section from their website. Check out his blog for the presentation and his rant against the feds. You can also see his presentation above.
Ward 12 Ald. Shane Keating sent out a fiery press release asking what our MPs actually do for us highlighting the fact that most if not all of them decided to campaign elsewhere during the latest federal election. It’s a good question and one that is long overdue in being raised by members of council MLAs and a large portion of the population.
Why should the Conservatives try to buy votes in Calgary when we’re just going to elect them to every riding no matter what they do? Who needs to throw money at Conservative Calgary? As the politicians rightly point out we are being taken advantage of.
