Five city wards – all part of Conservative ridings – got seven of the eight federal grants last week as part of the Canada 150 infrastructure funding announced on the eve of the election call. Three of those went to the only Hamilton riding that might change hands on October 19.
In response to very tight federal deadlines, city council submitted 27 unranked projects in early June that staff believed fell within the Canada 150 guidelines. Nineteen were inside the boundaries of the former city of Hamilton or Stoney Creek – with all but one inside the three existing NDP seats.
Only one of those 19 was accepted – renovations of St Mark’s Church in the downtown ward two – a last minute addition pushed by Jason Farr. The other eight requests were in Ancaster, Flamborough, Dundas or Binbrook and seven of those got funding from the Harper government. Federal monies under the program were also announced last week for two projects submitted by the Hamilton Conservation Authority (HCA) – and they also went to the two area Conservative ridings.
First news of the funding decisions came in a July 24 media release by councillor Lloyd Ferguson titled “MP David Sweet to Announce Federal Grants for Ancaster Facilities”. The release promised the presence of Sweet and Ferguson at the ceremony and made no mention of either the City of Hamilton or Mayor Eisenberger.
Sweet also delivered the funding news for the HCA grants – one to Westfield Heritage Village and the other to the Fifty Point Conservation Area. No local NDP Members of Parliament were in attendance at either announcement. Any promised additional funding under the program established by the Harper government to mark Canada’s 150th anniversary in 2017 can not legally be released until after the election that was called on Sunday.
Current national polling combined with previous results indicate that the only local federal riding likely still in contention is the new Hamilton West-Ancaster-Dundas seat where CBC Poll-Tracker gives the NDP a slight edge (32.0%) over the Conservatives (31.7%) and the Liberals (30.5%). The NDP is projected to easily win the Hamilton Centre, Hamilton Mountain and Hamilton East-Stoney Creek seats they currently hold, while the Conservatives appear to have a lock on Flamborough-Glanbrook (where Sweet is their candidate) and Niagara West.
The latter two include both the HCA funding announcements along with four of the seven successful city submissions, with the other three bestowed upon the new West Hamilton-Ancaster-Dundas riding. Current polling shows the Green Party is strongest in these three ridings with 4.9 to 6.0 percent support.
The political bias in the latest funding announcements seems to be even more extreme than an earlier near identical Harper program that disbursed $150 million under the Community Infrastructure Improvement Fund. A Globe and Mail analysis found Conservative ridings got an average of 48 percent more monies from that program than opposition party ridings – equivalent to about an extra $180,000.
While the poll results for Hamilton seats are based on the new riding boundaries, they don’t take account of the impact of individual candidates. There have been minor boundary changes to the three NDP ridings. Hamilton East now starts at Kenilworth instead of Ottawa with the difference being added to Hamilton Centre which loses its mountain section west of West 5th and north of the Linc to the new riding.
The Hamilton Mountain riding now extends westward from Garth to the end of Rymal south of the Linc and loses a slice between Rymal and hydro corridor. The latter includes Turner Park where two of the unfunded city projects are shifting into the riding he now hopes to represent.
The new Hamilton West-Ancaster-Dundas riding lies between the 403 and the rail line along the bottom of the escarpment in Dundas. Its southern boundary is Highway 52 and it includes part of the west mountain between the top of the escarpment and Rymal and west of Garth or West 5th. It takes in much of Sweet’s current seat but Waterdown and other rural areas stretching all the way to the border with Niagara are now part of the Flamborough-Glanbrook riding where he has chosen to carry the Conservative banner.
Population shifts are another factor that may affect local election races, especially the rapid growth in Binbrook, Waterdown and the south mountain that helped generate the additional seat.
CORRECTION
Our July 28 article stated that “Lloyd Ferguson reported returning a cheque to DCR Holdings because it was signed by [Sergio] Manchia. This company is redeveloping the former Otis Elevator on Victoria North where Manchia is the planner.”
A representative of Urban Core and a lawyer for Mr Manchia have informed us that “DCR Holdings is not owned by Mr Manchia, nor were any cheques from this company signed by Mr Manchia.” We had relied on an oral statement of councillor Ferguson and a written one from his auditor that both indicated the cheque was “from Sergio Manchia”, but we cannot confirm that it was signed by him so we have amended the story. Mr Manchia is not the planner for the Victoria North development being developed by DCR Holdings and Urban Core.