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 Flin Flon taxpayers will help promote northern Manitoba's lone seaport even as one prominent city councillor calls it an unworthy expense. At their meeting last week, council voted to renew their annual membership with the Hudson Bay Route Association (HBRA) for $300. But it wasn't unanimous as Coun. Colleen McKee, the fiscally conservative chair of the Finance Committee, voted against the expenditure. 'As Finance chair I just like to watch my pennies and that's one of the areas where I think I can,' she said. Council has traditionally belonged to the HBRA, which promotes the Port of Churchill and the railway leading to it. Mayor George Fontaine said the HBRA 'affects communities in the North' even though Flin Flon is not directly part of the railway route. This was just the latest effort by Coun. McKee to clamp down on spending even if it goes against the majority of council. In 2011 she voted against funding Flin Flon's new water treatment plant, mandated by the NDP government, because of the financial implications. At a council meeting in June 2012, Coun. McKee argued that council should put up more of a fight against costly orders from higher levels of government. 'These are things that we are mandated to do by the government, but honestly I don't think we're screaming loud enough,' she said. 'Because I think what happens is, we're mandated to do these things, we end up doing them, we end up paying for them and we just take it on the chin. And quite frankly I'm tired of taking it on the chin. I think that we have to get mad, I think that we have to start screaming a little louder.'
