Business kicks up campaign
HEATHER MCLAUGHLIN
mclaughlin.heather@dailygleaner.com
Published Thursday May 31st, 2007
Appeared on page A1
Fredericton's business community is going to step up the effort to lobby Ottawa for $8 million in funding for a downtown convention centre.
Frustrated by the lack of federal response to repeated requests for financial support for the multimillion-dollar project in the downtown east end, the business groups feel it's time to act.
Fredericton city councillors are getting equally anxious about the wall of silence from Ottawa.
At a recent closed-door meeting, councillors passed a resolution to proceed with the convention centre and negotiations have already started with ADI Ltd. and its partnership of companies in Ontario and New York to begin detailed design.
The resolution will move forward to the June 11 council meeting for ratification in the public forum.
Fredericton Chamber of Commerce general manager Anthony Knight said his group wrote to Prime Minister Stephen Harper last fall and to Greg Thompson, federal cabinet minister responsible for New Brunswick.
The letter was copied to federal Infrastructure, Transport and Communities Minister Lawrence Cannon.
"We expressed concern at the slow approach to moving on the project and how critically important it is for Fredericton," Knight said.
"We're missing out on opportunities related to events. We have long waiting lists, but we simply can't accommodate them. There's a great deal of opportunity that has presented itself. We need that convention centre now."
Knight said there are other actions that the business group can take to step up the lobbying effort.
"We're in the preliminary stages of advocacy to Ottawa," he said.
Downtown Fredericton general manager Bruce McCormack said his group is sending a letter to Mayor Brad Woodside, urging him to take a delegation to Ottawa to show the federal government how important the project is to Fredericton.
"The business community is driving this. We all feel -and we met with our presidents - that this is so important to our community and to all the operators, all the businesses in the community," McCormack said.
Ottawa is sitting on a $13-billion budget surplus and all Fredericton wants is $8 million, McCormack said.
"We want to make our point very clear to the people in charge that we need to have this," said Downtown Fredericton president Rob Jackson. "We want to do something that will make a positive impact."
The business community has the will, the desire and is assembling the cold hard facts to put before Ottawa to convince it of the merits of the project, Jackson said.
Woodside hasn't given up hope that Ottawa will play its role in the development.
"We're still negotiating and trying to get the federal government onside. The process is one that we had approved. We're in step with what our progress should have been at this particular point in time," Woodside said.
The mayor said the city can't sit back and wait for Ottawa to announce funding or the project will lose too much valuable time.
"We still have faith in (New Brunswick MPs) Greg Thompson and Mike Allen as supporters of the project," Woodside said. "I'm looking forward to and confident that the federal government will come to the table."
Other sources are telling The Daily Gleaner that the city had to move forward with the support of its stakeholders because of the unpredictably of the federal government.
The spirit of the council resolution approved last week means that the city will push forward despite how long Ottawa drags its feet, sources said.