Barrie Examiner column: Stimulus Funding at Work

July 02, 2009

Stimulus Funding At Work in Barrie

I believe our national efforts to combat the global economic recession are bearing economic fruit in Barrie.  We have announced 51 million dollars in federal funding for Barrie in the last four months.  This is the largest ever federal infrastructure investment into the City of Barrie.
The signature projects include a new fire station 1, an expansion to the Lake Simcoe Regional Airport, upgrades to Eastview Arena, an indoor downtown tennis complex, the expansion of Georgian College and a downtown train station.

The building of a new fire station was desperately needed. It will be located on the grounds of the old Dunlop arena.  Our firefighters risk their lives to keep our community safe.  The least we can do for them is provide state of the art equipment.   Len Mitchell, Kevin White and Charlie Gray from Barrie Fire had been lobbying for this in their visit to Ottawa this spring.     The federal government is supporting this to the tune of 4.26 million dollars.

The airport expansion had been championed by the late Paul Mulrooney who had passed away at a very young age this past February.   He had a dream that the airport could be a hub for commercial activity that would allow our businesses to complete inter-provincially and internationally.   His dream has become a reality.   This project involves a federal commitment of 4.596 million dollars.

Georgian College was awarded $20,000,000.00 as the federal government share towards The Centre for Health and Wellness.  The 15,000 square metre facility will allow Georgian to accommodate over 3,000 additional students in diploma and degree programs, and will be a feeder for the Royal Victoria Hospital.

Our government also doubled the annual funding that Barrie receives as part of the Gas Tax Fund. This increased investment will total over $6.7 million in 2009. We have also announced close to 8 million dollars in infrastructure improvements for Barrie that include watermain construction at Salem Rd, construction work on Ann St, Cundles Rd, Kozlov St, Heather Street, Boys Street, Donald Street, Bunkers Creek,  Kidds Creek, Toronto St, Dunlop St,  and Mary Street.   This funding also includes some significant upgrades to the City operations center.    

The result of all these projects is jobs, jobs and more jobs.  We expect these economic stimulus projects in Barrie will result in more than 1000 jobs in our community in the immediate future.   The one rule on this funding is that the projects must be completed within two years and construction must start as soon as possible.  The Georgian College project is a good example of this as it starts this summer and will result in 181 construction jobs and subsequently 400 full time and part time jobs at the new facility.   

So every time you drive around the city and are slowed down by construction projects please recognize that this represents the largest one time construction boom to our community ever and is our weapon to combat the economic slowdown.