Finance Minister and Moncton Northwest MLA Ernie Steeves did not respond to a request for comment Monday. Liberal MLA Monique LeBlanc said it was difficult to find projects in her Moncton East riding to fit the program criteria. (Radio-Canada/CBC)
Turns out Moncton South Liberal MLA Cathy Rogers is not the lowest-spending member of the legislature after all when it comes to the Community Investment Fund.
Rogers had the lowest total spending on a database of CIF projects released to CBC News last week, a mere $2,856.
But a sharp-eyed reader noticed that two other ridings in the city, Moncton Northwest and Moncton East, were missing from the list.
The ridings, held by Progressive Conservative Finance Minister Ernie Steeves and Liberal MLA Monique LeBlanc, were not included because they did not secure any projects at all in 2019-20.
"If there were no projects, they would not appear in the report," said Mary-Anne Hurley-Corbyn, a spokesperson for the Regional Development Corporation.
The fund was created in 2019 to provide $50,000 to each riding in the province to fund projects by non-profit groups and local governments. MLAs have a role in choosing them.
LeBlanc would not do an interview Monday but said in a written statement that it was "very unfortunate that I was not able to use the community funding made available by RDC last fiscal year."
She said because her riding is made up of "mostly residential areas," it was difficult to find projects that fit the program criteria.
It just seems to be there are a lot of photo opportunities but when the rubber hits the road, there is not a lot of open communication to help out or to get a project going.
- Shawn Crossman, Moncton city councillor
LeBlanc also pointed out that Steeves' riding was not on the list of projects either. "I assume he encountered the same problem," she said.
Steeves did not respond to a request for comment Monday.
Moncton city Coun. Shawn Crossman, whose ward overlaps a large part of LeBlanc's riding of Moncton East, said he was "kind of disappointed, and shocked at the same time" that the riding wasn't on the list at all.
LeBlanc, pictured here in 2015 during the New Brunswick election with then-federal Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau and then-New Brunswick Liberal Leader Brian Gallant, said she's having better luck finding projects this year. (The Canadian Press)
He said non-profit groups in the riding, including the Greater Moncton SPCA, the Knights of Columbus, the Royal Canadian Legion and others, could have benefited from the funding.
"It just seems to be there are a lot of photo opportunities but when the rubber hits the road, there is not a lot of open communication to help out or to get a project going," he said.
Crossman said he was surprised that Steeves' riding wasn't on the list either. "I'm sure that that section of Moncton would definitely have a lot of community groups … that could use some funding."
Nearly $1M not spent
Only $1.6 million of the total $2.45 million available in 2019-20 was spent, with RDC minister Andrea Anderson-Mason saying recently that some MLAs "for whatever reason either were not able to use it or chose not to use it."
She said it would be difficult to convince the government to increase the funding, given not all of it was used last year.
Rogers said last week her low total in 2019-20 was because housing and homelessness projects, the major issues in her riding, were not eligible for the funding.
She said with a new push for applications, she's on track to take full advantage of the funding this year.
LeBlanc said she's also having better luck. "Thankfully, this year I was able to find projects that should be eligible for funding. They are currently being assessed by government."
COVID-19 costs qualify this year
Including Rogers, two ridings with Liberal MLAs and four with Progressive Conservative members received less than $10,000 last year. A seventh riding, Shediac Bay-Dieppe, also had less but was without an MLA for part of the year after Brian Gallant resigned his seat.
This year, MLAs can use the funding to help non-profit groups deal with costs from COVID-19. Only two MLAs, Liberal Gilles LePage of Restigouche West and Progressive Conservative Bill Oliver of Kings Centre, managed to spend the full $50,000 they had to work with last year.
Eight other members, five PCs and three Liberals, came within $1,000 of maxing out their allocations.
Jacques Poitras has been CBC's provincial affairs reporter in New Brunswick since 2000. Raised in Moncton, he also produces the CBC political podcast Spin Reduxit.
David Amos Methinks this will be old news in a heartbeat once the corporate media figures out that Higgy is planning to have the writ dropped for a general election in early September N'esy Pas?
