City of Ottawa
Mayor Jim Watson anticipates funding from federal government for stage two of the LRT development.Mayor Jim Watson says there are many reasons why the new federal government could help the city’s economy in the coming years.
A source of optimism stems from the Liberals taking power. Since the Grits majority win, Watson indicates the new government is talking with him about supporting new investments in the City of Ottawa.
“I’ve had outreach by a number of local MPs already in the last couple of days wanting to work on a number of projects,” Watson said to reporters following Ottawa’s Economic Outlook 2015 on Oct. 27.
The mayor says the new government is going to be easier to deal with than the previous Conservative government.
“I feel very optimistic that it’s going to be a much more open door approach between the federal government and municipal governments,” Watson says.
Watson would not reveal any details of what projects might be in the works.
“No, not at this point . . . the government is going to have to bring down its first budget that will set the tone for next year,” he says.
The biggest pledge to municipalities is the election promise to allocate $10 billion in new spending in each of the next two fiscal years toward infrastructure and the middle class. How much of this money each community across Canada, including Ottawa, will see for new projects has yet to be determined.
There is at least one hint Ottawa will get a piece of this pie.
Watson says he spoke with Trudeau the day before the Liberals made their major election announcement for new infrastructure spending.
“I’m hearing from my colleagues around the country they very much appreciate the outreach that Trudeau has participated in. He called me (the night before) to give me the details of it,” Watson says.
During the presentation at the Ottawa’s Economic Outlook event, Watson indicated there is already a federal commitment to the city’s largest infrastructure project on the horizon. He said that prior to the election, the Liberals promised to help fund stage two of the city’s light rail transit project, expected to break ground in 2018.
The previous Conservative government made a commitment of up to $1 billion for this project in the summer. Stage one is already under construction at a cost of $2.1 billion.
Regardless of how much new infrastructure money Ottawa sees from the new government, BMO Financial Group’s chief economist suggests the new infrastructure spending will have a positive short-term impact on the country. Douglas Porter, who also spoke at Ottawa’s Economic Outlook 2015, says the initial boost from an additional $10 billion dollars of federal government spending should result in a half of a per cent increase to the nation’s growth rate in 2016.
The additional $10 billion in spending hasn’t been officially budgeted yet, but since Watson has already been speaking with MPs about work on projects, it seems fair for Ottawa to expect new funding.
Also, the initial communication with MPs is early indication the city and the federal government are getting off to a good start.
“It will be a less challenging relationship than we’ve had in the past,” Watson says.