Even without federal funding, Sarnia will push forward on a job-creating oversized load corridor.
A bid for $6 million in federal funding fell flat earlier this year, but Sarnia council pledged this week to go ahead making investments regardless in upgrading the route – raising power lines, adjusting street lights, improving roads and upgrading Sarnia Harbour.
“We’ve already been turned down and yet businesses need this accommodation now,” said Coun. Brian White before council unanimously confirmed $4.7 million for the project.
The money is contingent on already pledged commitments from the County of Lambton, St. Clair Township and the Sarnia-Lambton Industrial Alliance being similarly confirmed.
The local funds – combined, half the estimated $12-million cost of the project – had been tied to approval of a National Trade Corridor Fund bid, turned down by Transport Canada in the spring.
Sarnia’s motion this week frees the city’s funds from being contingent on federal funding approval, and calls for spending on the project to start by targeting key points along the route that would bring large industrial vessels or components to the harbour from local metal shops and fabricators.
The current practice requires service trucks to raise utility lines, maneuvering along city streets not designed for them, adding costs and limiting local companies’ competitiveness.
Studies have estimated a permanent corridor could add the equivalent of 2,600 full-time jobs in the coming years, as well as $263 million to Canada’s gross domestic product.
A City of Sarnia report is expected back in the next few months detailing where spending could be targeted.
“This is the road to the promised land this community needs,” Coun. Andy Bruziewicz, said, calling it a necessity for local competitiveness.
“It’s more than oil and gas developments; it includes shipping all over the world,” he said.
Hopes are too that with Lambton-Kent-Middlesex MPP Monte McNaughton now minister of infrastructure, more political will can be found at Queen’s Park to fund the project.
A meeting is planned with McNaughton next week to discuss next steps, said Rick Perdeaux, chairperson of the Sarnia Lambton Industrial Alliance.
The alliance is a group of local fabricators and industrial service companies that have been expanding beyond their traditional customer base in Chemical Valley to export markets outside the region.
Any funding opportunity through the government would still require an application process, Perdeaux said.
Meanwhile, detailed designs mean it’s easy to identify where the biggest bottlenecks are, he said.
Around Corunna where $2-billion Nova expansion work is underway, all sorts of equipment and components could soon be coming to the area, he said.
“What I’m hoping we can do with the meeting from city council the other night is now establish sort of a project leader and start the project moving,” he said, noting he was “very, very pleased” with what was said at the council meeting.
“I think it’s quite a milestone that the township, the county and the city are all in harmony to work together,” he said.
https://www.theobserver.ca/news/local-news/undeterred-by-undersized-budget