For the last couple of weeks, there have been stories about how the Conservatives appear to be using the Infrastructure Stimulus Fund (ISF) as a Conservative reward program. The Conservative government appears to have been disproportionately directing taxpayers’ money to cities with Conservative MPs or ministers instead of where it is needed the most. Reports have been exposing this unfair practice in British Columbia, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Ontario. These reports have been raising serious questions about the potential abuse of billions of dollars (as we are wrestling with the largest deficit in Canadian history), where the Conservatives appear to be using public funds for their own partisan benefit.

I thought I would dig deeper and examine how Mississauga was treated by this program and this government. Did Mississauga receive its fair share from this stimulus fund?

The numbers are quite telling.

Ontario was allocated about $1.1 billion in Infrastructure Stimulus Fund money, translating to about $90 for each Ontarian (according to the 2006 census). Mississauga was assigned $46 million (to be matched by the province of Ontario and the city of Mississauga). According to the 2006 census, it means that Mississauga only received $69 per person. The city of Mississauga received 23% less than the provincial average.

It gets worse.  Looking at some cities that are represented by Conservative MPs, the numbers are even more disturbing.  For example, Barrie received $129 per person, Niagara Falls received $200 per person, Cambridge received $170 per person, and Oakville received $279 per person. 

Access to this data isn’t readily available since the Conservative government refuses to make it public. The Parliamentary Budget Officer already criticized the Conservatives for their lack of transparency. I obtained this data using research done by the office of Gerard Kennedy which provides more detail about this colossal breach of trust by this government. At a time when our country is anxious about the future and is grappling with a staggering deficit, it is outrageous that Mr. Harper is abusing his authority and using taxpayers’ money to reward his friends.

To prevent against such unfairness the Liberal Party had proposed to distribute a big portion of the infrastructure stimulus fund using an existing mechanism that shares gas tax revenue with cities fairly and efficiently. Regrettably, the Conservatives and only the Conservatives voted against this idea in the House of Commons. We now know why.

Should an unemployed person needing a job be worth more in one area over another based on that city’s voting decisions?

This disrespect of public finances has been compounded by this government’s use of public funds to sell the Conservative brand.  Taxpayers are funding a partisan TV ad campaign which claims that the Conservative government is doing a fabulous job without any verification.  The Conservatives are also using government cheques with the Conservative logo or Conservative MPs’ names for photo opportunities to sell the brand and to sell their candidates.

Ontario still has $600 million of its share of the stimulus fund to be announced by the federal government and fair minded citizens should insist it be used to correct any unfairness. Mississauga is the sixth largest city in Canada and the third largest in Ontario. Not all of its infrastructure funding applications have been approved. There are still many important projects in Mississauga that deserve support.

This is a call to action for Canadians to write to Minister John Baird and Prime Minister Stephen Harper to express their outrage with the current direction, request that Mississauga be treated fairly and demand that the government comply with the Parliamentary Budget Officer’s recommendations that they release funding data.