Brandon bidding for drainage funding

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This article was published 26/07/2023 (1150 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Tours of local post-secondary institutions, a meeting with the mayor and discussion of a City of Brandon grant application for a major infrastructure project were on the agenda for a government MP’s visit to the Wheat City on Tuesday.

Winnipeg North Liberal MP Kevin Lamoureux’s visit to Brandon comes after Mayor Jeff Fawcett visited Ottawa earlier this year and invited him to take a closer look at what’s going on in Manitoba’s second-largest city.

Speaking with the Sun on Tuesday, Fawcett and Lamoureux said Brandon had submitted a funding request through the federal Disaster Mitigation and Adaptation Fund earlier this month surrounding the in-progress southeast drainage project.

The project, for which the city has approved $30 million in borrowing to complete, aims to ease drainage concerns by building new drainage ponds as well as infrastructure that will carry rainwater more directly into the Assiniboine River.

When the city held an open house on the project in April, the fifth and final phase of work was given a projected completion date of either late 2025 or early 2026.

While touring Assiniboine Community College and Brandon University, Fawcett said he and Lamoureux spoke about how the federal government can contribute to ACC’s Prairie Innovation Centre, which studies sustainable agriculture, as well as to needed renovations to the John R. Brodie Science Centre at the university.

Last week, the provincial and federal governments announced joint funding worth $180 million to bring more than 3,700 new child-care spaces to Manitoba, of which 608 are earmarked for Westman, including 216 at ACC’s North Hill campus.

Lamoureux said one of the reasons Fawcett wanted him to visit the college was to see where those spaces were going to be added.

“(It’s) a national program working hand in hand with the provinces, and then you see how municipalities also play a vital role,” Lamoureux said.

“I think it’s a good success story in terms of when the different levels of government can come together and work together, you can do some wonderful things. There’ll be more women in the workforce here in Brandon as a direct result of that program.”

At last week’s Brandon City Council meeting, councillors approved funding for a consultancy firm to study Brandon Transit and provide a new long-term plan for revising its operations and routes.

In July last year, the federal and provincial government announced $478 million in joint funding to help overhaul Winnipeg’s transit system and bring in electric buses.

The MP said his government has recognized the importance of public transit over the last number of years and has provided hundreds of millions in funding.

He said he would “be shocked if there wasn’t something for rural communities the size of Brandon,” made available, though he did not have specific details.

Establishing relationships directly with municipalities like Brandon and having a chance for face-to-face interactions is important, Lamoureux said, because you can better assess priorities when you’re able to assess a project beyond what it looks like on paper.

“I feel better leaving Brandon in the sense that I have a better idea in terms of what’s happening at the post-secondary institutions,” Lamoureux said.

“In good part it’s because you have a mayor that comes up to Ottawa and shares some thoughts on where you’d like to see money flow and then making it feel good in terms of coming to check it out in an on-site visit.”

The mayor said that on top of speaking about the community’s future needs, he was also able to show Lamoureux the impact that federal dollars have had on Brandon like at the construction site for the new Outdoor Sports Complex at the corner of First Street North and Veterans Way.

“I was really very appreciative for Kevin to be able to come out here today and take a look at a number of potentially very, very big projects that will be a massive benefit to the city and to our whole region,” Fawcett said.

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