Handshake agreement creates funding confusion for Sask. infrastructure projects

The provincial government isn’t backing down from it’s ongoing dispute with the federal government over infrastructure dollars.

After agreements were struck on Monday for 13 of 25 incoming projects across Saskatchewan, the province said it would not support any further projects until certain provisions of the Integrated Bilateral Agreement (IBA) signed last October are lifted.

Speaking at the opening of an early child learning centre in Saskatoon on Thursday, Deputy Premier and Minister Responsible for SaskBuilds, Gordon Wyant, said handshake agreements that would allow excess funds to be transferred from transit streams into community, culture and recreation (CCR) streams were never formalized.

“That’s the reason we delayed signing the agreement,” Wyant said. “We needed flexibility, and I was very clear with the federal government about the flexibility we wanted.”

Wyant said Saskatchewan was the last province to sign the agreement due to negotiating the flow of funding between the agreement’s four streams. The ability to transfer funds from transit to CCR streams is prohibited until the agreement’s third anniversary.

According to Wyant, $307 million was set aside for the transit stream that was exclusive to Saskatoon and Regina. Both cities informed the province that they did not need that much money. An amended agreement to transfer money from transit to the $56-million CCR stream was discussed but never formalized.

“We were always under the understanding in the conversations that we had with the federal minister was that those funds would be backfilled, and we wouldn’t have to wait three years for it, so that those funds would be available for other CCR projects in the rest of the province,” Wyant said.

Wyant said letters sent to city officials in Regina and Saskatoon from the federal government assured the ability to transfer funds.

Even with nothing officially in writing, the province signed the agreement and began raising issues with the agreement earlier this month.

“The net result of this is that had we known that the federal government wasn’t going to allow those funds to be transferred, I’m not sure we would have put forward cultural and recreational projects in Saskatoon and Regina, because it was clearly our understanding that those funds would be available,” Wyant said.

Forty per cent of the CCR stream is dedicated to Regina and Saskatoon.

“To have these funds taken out of the CCR funds without them being replenished really puts the province and municipalities around this province at a significant disadvantage,” he said.

While Wyant believes the federal government did not practice good faith during negotiations, it hasn’t shaken his confidence for other agreements or discussions.