Canada Can't Afford Another SRTC Fiasco!

Since I well remember the disastrous Scientific Research Tax Credit program of the mid-80's and the billions that it cost the taxpayers of Canada with very little actual research being conducted and I have noticed troubling similarities developing with the government's Infrastructure Stimulus Fund, I submitted the following 'Letter to the Editor' to 21 'major' regional newspapers across Canada, almost all of them in the Canwest/Global fold (which shows just how much concentration of media there is in Canada!). Much to my dismay, as far as I can tell, only 1 newspaper, the Winnipeg Sun (which is NOT a Canwest/Global property), published this short piece. What possible reason could the others have for not wanting to help see that taxpayers' hard-earned money is spent in an efficient, effective and transparent manner?

Dear Editor,
Seems like everyone nowadays is in an 'all-fired' hurry to spend billions of dollars on infrastructure funding, which of course, is just taxpayers' money (minus a 15-20% 'handling' fee) being returned to the chosen few. In our rush to 'stimulate' the economy, we need to remember the example of the Scientific Research Tax Credit program of the mid 1980's, a federal government program which cost the taxpayers of Canada almost $8 billion (in 2009 dollars), with it being widely reported that almost $4 billion of that resulted in no actual scientific research being done (i.e., it was obtained under false pretences).
I personally know of 3 infrastructure grants which were awarded to applicants who did not meet the requirements. In our haste, let's be sure that this latest program amounts to substantially more than 'shovelling money off the back of a truck'. Canada cannot afford another expensive, failed program - strict controls must be in place, beginning with the selection, without political influence, of projects that best meet the program's criteria right through to the spending of the money and, if the government can't satisfy taxpayers that they can do that, then our money must stay in the bank.

The 'Politics' of Infrastructure Grants

'Letter to the Editor' largely as submitted to the Nanaimo Daily News on Nov. 11/08 (in order to try and stay within their 300 word limit, I had to pare it down to the absolute essentials - although that resulted in leaving out some bits that I thought were important to understanding my point). Think very carefully before you consider rewarding any politician for giving some of your own money back to you.
The Daily News published my letter on Nov. 15th but, since the item was still about 40 words over their limit, they chose to eliminate the entire second to the last paragraph (containing 85 words, dropping it down to 253). Now, for the sake of a few words, especially those particular words, I would have thought they would have let them stand. How do you feel - is it acceptable that local newspapers enforce such rigid limits on items submitted by the public when they themselves can go on and on in an editorial/opinion piece, if it suits their purposes? I see it as one of the many reasons that people are just not subscribing to newspapers anymore.

While we're on the subject of 'bright ideas', what do you think of someone who tells you that paying for services out of reserve funds is great because you get the service without an increase in taxes. While reserve funds can be useful in limited circumstances, I find three things wrong with their use:
1. they result in taxes higher than they needed to be because the monies are collected in advance, so how is that a benefit? If you move money from your savings account to chequing to pay for a major purchase, are you not poorer than before?
2. because the public's approval is not required to create and fund a reserve fund, it can be used as a way to get around obtaining the public's consent for major projects (as would be required if the money had to be borrowed)
3. once the money has been put into the reserve fund, Council is pretty much required to build something for which the fund was designed (i.e., the money is 'restricted' and can't be used for general revenues) so there is really no opportunity for 'sober, second thought'

Dear Editor,
I find it quite troubling that we have come to the point where we actually use how much infrastructure money a politician claims to have obtained for us as a measure of their performance (Compare benefits brought to two Nanaimo ridings, Nanaimo Daily News, Oct. 21/08).
The whole 'era of infrastructure grants' is designed to separate us from our tax dollars and leave us feeling beholden to our politicians/government(s). The entire concept of infrastructure grants is problematic for me - it is a system whereby taxes are collected from the people, squirreled away in government accounts, grant applications are processed by a group of bureaucrats and a portion of it (less 'administrative' costs, of course) is then returned to some of the taxpayers in a blatant effort to influence voters. We are being 'bought with our own money'!
It would be much more efficient (and far less 'political') if the money were raised locally for broadly-supported projects solving real problems from those who will benefit. Otherwise, it becomes a game of 'get yours or somebody else will' and even the 'winners' have no certainty that they have received back anywhere near what they have paid in.
The photo 'ops' and the news releases are always quick to follow the awarding of any monies. The politicians obviously don't write the 'cookie-cutter' press release (I have even seen one where the announcing MLA was still referred to as 'xxx') and typically don't have a clue of the real cost/benefits of the project being funded.
I know of at least two projects where the essential criteria of the grants were ignored and a total of $6.7 million was awarded anyway. $5.6 million of that was in my own community, where it was/will be used to install collector sewers to deal with what the technical evaluation said could be as little as a 5% septic system failure rate and we get to live with the varied 'unintended consequences'. Should I vote for any of Lantzville's current councillors on Nov. 15th or support my MLA, Ron Cantelon, in May '09 based on that? I think not!
We would all do well to remember Rafe Mair's Axiom of Subsidiarity, perfectly tailored for this situation: lesser politicians should always, without fail, beware of gifts coming from higher levels of governments.

Update [08 11 13] Well, that really couldn't have been more timely -
On the Log blog [http://thelog.ca] (Nov. 11/08), Lantzville Councillor Denise Haime said:
With respect to the Tourism plan, it was paid for by a Provincial government grant not out of the District of Lantzville budget.
Doing such a plan was a requirement in order to get other grant monies for items such as Minetown Days.

(Nov. 11/08) Lantzville Councillor Douglas Parkhurst said:
The plan has been funded by a provincial grant. It was required as part of a larger grant that the district received. The other part of the funds have been used to fund mine town days and for the future, it can be used to help with a trail plan and other amenity developments. This plan didn't cost the ratepayers. The province is really the one who paid for it.

So, we applied for some money that we really didn't need in order to get some that we had a use for and it "didn't cost the ratepayers". Well, I hate to break it to accountants, Haime (x2) and Parkhurst, but just where do you think the province gets their money from? Local governments everywhere appear to be on this grant treadmill that seems to be running out of control, you might even say they are becoming addicted to it. Now I think you can begin to appreciate what Rafe Mair was talking about.

Update [10 06 16] Well, look at that, will you?! In a piece written for Maclean's magazine (Nov. 2/09 issue), Andrew Coyne, National editor and former journalist, editor and contributor to the National Post and Globe and Mail agrees with what I have been saying all along about infrastructure grants, calling the Conservative government's action on this file both a disgrace and rotten. Read the entire article at http://www2.macleans.ca/2009/10/26/the-cheques-arent-the-real-scandal/

Mainstream Media May Often Be Wrong But They're Tenacious!

I submitted the following 'Letter to the Editor' to the Harbour City Star because, when we are making decisions involving hundreds of thousands, if not millions of taxpayer dollars on infrastructure projects, it is important that we have access to factual information and not just so much talk to advance someone else's agenda. Notice that the Canwest/Global (now Postmedia) newspaper didn't like the very valid criticism of their past poor performance in this regard in the last paragraph and so deleted it from the letter that was actually published.

Dear Editor,
The unattributed piece, Sewers improved in Lantzville, The Star, Wed., April 30th, leaves a lot to be desired in terms of reporting. If it was provided by government, surely you have realized by now that even they (you know - "for the people, by the people") have their own agendas and their communications are specifically designed to further them.
For example, the "laying of a sewer pipe along the community's foreshore from its border with Nanaimo north to Oar Road" was only a part of the $3.6 million public expenditure, (one that was completed BEFORE the affected properties had even been asked to approve their 1/3 share) with the distribution of smaller collector pipes throughout an area of 208 (not 225 as reported) homes and businesses and a sewage lift station comprising the bulk of it.
Since it is the fields which normally fail in septic systems and the tanks remove about 40% of the Total Suspended Solids (TSS), 60% of the Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD) and 5-10% of the pathogens, it is irresponsible and just downright wrong to write that "(t)he problem of raw sewage leaking into open ditches from septic fields in Lantzville, where most residences are not hooked into the Regional District of Nanaimo sewer system [in fact, none were at the time] has alarmed residents for years". Not one piece of factual evidence has ever been provided to support that claim or level of concern.
It is uninformed and incorrect articles like yours which are the cause for alarm. Remember when your sister paper, the Nanaimo Daily News, ominously reported some 10 years ago that Lantzville was "literally a cesspool" and sewers were "criminally overdue"? One would have thought we'd all be dead by now!