When it comes to moving Lake Country forward with large infrastructure projects, it’s all about the grants.
And Lake Country isn’t alone when it comes to municipalities looking for either provincial or federal funding to assist in completing projects.
According to Lake Country infrastructure services manager Greg Buchholz, the competition for senior government money is intense and municipalities must have long term plans in place and submit a quality application if it expects to receive funding.
“The grants are always over-prescribed,” said Buchholz.
“There is always more demand than money available. It’s a competition and we need to put our best foot forward. The ways we do that is to show we are properly managing our assets and that we have done our master planning so we can prove the money we are spending is going to be well-spent.”
With more applications rolling in than money to give out, the quality of the application and the planning work done by a municipality isn’t the only way to secure the money. Once a municipality has done the proper leg work and submitted the requisite application, federal and provincial politicians take the ball and run. Having politicians that are in the ruling party doesn’t hurt.
In Lake Country, municipal politicians have held meetings with federal MP Stephen Fuhr, with the governing Liberals, as well as with MLA Norm Letnick, a member of the governing B.C. Liberals.
Mayor James Baker says relationships with federal and provincial politicians are important to help access grants.
“It’s extremely important because local government has to rely on the other levels of government to support us in our infrastructure building,” said Baker. “We had good working relationships in the past and we’d like to keep that happening with our local MP. We had very good meetings with him.”
Each year there are different grant programs available from senior levels of government. Typically Lake Country will work on one grant application at a time, although when new money becomes available, staff will work to put together an application. Currently the district has one application for grant money in combination with the Lake Country Boys and Girls Club to create more child care spaces along with the application to the Building Canada program that will go out by the end of April.
There is also grant money available from the UBCM using federal gas tax money and Lake Country applies to that program as well.
Winning the money is a combination of a solid application as well as support from politicians, said Buchholz.
“If you haven’t done your homework and you don’t have your long range plans you’re going to be in a hard position to get grants. We have very much enjoyed the support of our MP and MLA in the past and we appreciate that.”
