I do not remember a time when the public has been asked to provide input into a federal budget and I encourage you all to do so. City council certainly took the opportunity; here is our letter and budget submission to Minister of Finance Bill Morneau.
Dear Minister Morneau:
Thank you for your invitation to provide input into the 2016 federal budget.
The Salmon Arm City council supports your government’s initiative to help build the necessary infrastructure projects that provide employment, are environmentally friendly and either repair or replace the present eroding infrastructure.
We recognize that the Chase to Alberta transportation corridor connects east to west and plays a vital role in the movement of goods to the Port of Vancouver. This stretch of highway is integral to our economy and our people and, as such, should be a primary focus.
A key component of the Chase to Alberta transportation route is the Salmon River Bridge on the Trans-Canada Highway, west of Salmon Arm. This two-lane, curved bridge is old and dangerous and is in need of replacement.
Our city’s commercial sector has grown on the west side of town, and the traffic on the highway channels from four to two lanes across this bridge.
The provincial Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure has been working with the city and our First Nations neighbours, the Neskonlith and Adams Lake Indian bands, to finalize this project.
We need Federal funds to make the project happen. Not only will completion of this project help meet the government’s goal of four-laning the Trans-Canada Highway, the flood mitigation strategies embedded in the plan will help solve a long-standing problem of the imminent flooding of the Salmon River.
While our city has many projects that we are working towards, we would like to take this opportunity to draw attention to one other crucial infrastructure project that needs federal funding: the upgrade of the sanitary sewer main which runs along the foreshore of Shuswap Lake.
This line moves sewage from Canoe and outlying subdivisions to our sewage treatment plant.
The main was installed in 1976 and is 39 years old. We had a breach in the line in 2012, and narrowly averted an environmental disaster of sewage spilling into our lake. It is only a matter of time before the pipe fails again.
We have applied for a grant under the New Building Canada Small Communities Fund; the project cost is estimated at $1.8 million, however we were unsuccessful.
We were told to apply for phase two funding of this grant and are optimistic we will receive federal funds to ensure we can complete these upgrades.
We appreciate the opportunity to provide input to your government around the 2016 budget and look forward to working with you to ensure important infrastructure projects will be able to move ahead.
