Phil Shirks Responsibility… Again

Phil McColeman has insulted Brantford's hard-working city councillors by blaming them entirely for the cost overruns at the Gretzky Centre renovation.

As this blog has repeatedly stated, the cost overruns are almost entirely due to an unreasonably tight deadline on stimulus spending – a deadline implemented by the Conservative government. (For DumpPhil's past coverage of this issue, see "Phil's Pointless Promise",  "Gretzky Centre Over Cost Because of Phil!",  and "Conservative government costs Brantford millions in wastePHIL spending")

When will Phil man up and take responsibility??

Gretzky Centre Over Cost Because of Phil!

Phil was super-happy to brag all about the pork-barrel funding of the Gretzky Centre construction (in conjunction with Dave Levac). But the Harper government made an unreasonable deadline for using the money so that they could look good before an election. The deadline was eventually moved back, but the process had already been sped up. The shortened timeframe forced costs higher, and this was coupled with a bottleneck of contractors across Canada working on pork-barrel projects in Conservative-held ridings.

Pretty bad planning from a man who brags about being a contractor. Here's a replay of the Conservatives' moronic move:

Phil's Pointless Promise

Phil McColeman was very happy to announce funding for an extension to Brantford's famous Wayne Gretzky Sports Centre. But then he imposed an impossible construction deadline. Now city councilors are desperately trying to get a funding extension for the project beyond March 2011. If they don't get an extension, Brant is faced with the choice of either paying extra money to get the project finished early, or paying extra money to complete the project after the deadline.

[Phil at the Gretzky Centre for a showy photo-op]

Brantford City Councilor Richard Carpenter said that "the federal government was interested mainly in showy photo-ops and not needed work such as road repair, leading to an overwhelming amount of arena and community centre renovations across the country and thus causing a bottleneck situation with contractors" that ultimately raised the cost of doing these renovations.

In Ottawa, Phil was too busy blabbering on about the gun registry instead of fighting for issues that really affect Brantfordians. However, Liberal Transport, Infrastructure and Communities Critic John McCallum did stand up for Brantford. McCallum said,

Next year, the Conservatives will spend billions on corporate tax cuts, while offering no flexibility to cities and communities who had to wait on the government’s delays.… The federal government is stiffing municipal ratepayers with the bill for Conservative delays instead of helping to finish projects. We need to finish the job and extend the deadline.

But Brant city councilors doubt that Phil and the Conservatives will listen to their request.

[The Gretzky Centre undergoing renovations]