The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Jonathon Naylor Editor The City of Flin Flon is hardly the only Canadian municipality facing some tough financial realities. That was the assessment of Coun. Karen MacKinnon after representing the city at a recent Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) convention. 'We think we have problems. When you go to something like this, we're doing good compared to a lot of other communities,' she said at last week's council meeting. 'The whole country is suffering.' Coun. MacKinnon said the Building Canada Fund _ a federal fund that helps pay for infrastructure projects across the country _ is due to expire in March 2014. 'Lobbying' She said FCM will 'be lobbying the federal government to come up with some means for municipalities...to come up with some way to start paying for some of this stuff.' Coun. MacKinnon also said northern Manitoba has 'good representation' on the FCM board with the election of Erin Hogan, a city councillor from Thompson. Coun. MacKinnon attended the FCM conference held the weekend of June 1 in Saskatoon. The $8.8-billion Building Canada Fund was established under the 2007 Building Canada plan to fund projects from 2007 to 2014. It supports projects designed to deliver results in three areas: a stronger economy, a cleaner environment and prosperous communities. The Fund works by making investments in public infrastructure owned by provincial, territorial and municipal governments, and in certain cases, private sector and non-profit organizations. Funding is allocated to each province and territory based on population. All projects funded through the Building Canada Fund are cost-shared, with the maximum federal contribution to any single project being 50 per cent.
