Minister For Rural Economic Development Bernadette Jordan - August 2019
A large number of recent federal funding announcements has raised a few eyebrows.
Some candidates running to represent South Shore-St. Margaret’s have pointed out the large number of funding announcements this summer came suspiciously close to the election.
Liberal Candidate Bernadette Jordan says despite the proximity to the election call, there’s nothing suspicious in the timing.
“As the Minister for Rural Economic Development, in July, I had a hundred applications come in just from Ontario. Am I supposed to say to them, I’m sorry we can’t approve any of these because there’s an election coming?”
Jordan says many of these projects were in the works for over a year.
She uses the recent Bridgewater interchange announcement as an example.
“It’s money that we budgeted and it’s money that is there for infrastructure projects, and I don’t apologize for building them.”
Jordan says those announcements are not out of the ordinary.
“Most of the spending that we do is in the summertime because that’s when construction season is, and that’s when we do announcements because we’re home. If you look at my record, you’ll see that most of the announcements I’ve been making have always been in the summertime.”
Jordan says even with an election pending, government still needs to govern.
She says provinces and municipalities set their own priorities and the federal government is there to assist them with infrastructure needs for their communities.
Reported by: Ed Halverson
Twitter: @edwardhalverson
E-mail: halverson.ed@radioabl.ca
