02/13/2014


This afternoon the Prime Minister, the Right Honourable Stephen Harper, announced additional details of the New Building Canada Fund.

The $14 billion, ten-year New Building Canada Fund was first announced in Budget 2013 and intended to flow for the 2014 construction season. Today the federal government provided additional details regarding the funding and how the program will operate. AMO is pleased that the federal government is targeting spring 2014 for applications, bringing us a step closer to the announced April 1st target date.

However, AMO is seeking additional information such as the full details of the Building Canada Fund agreement, eligibility and application requirements to assess how municipal interests have been addressed. AMO is also interested in the provincial response to the announcement since Ontario is a funding partner.

The New Building Canada Fund will continue to be application-based with categories available to both large and smaller municipalities. The new fund’s Small Communities Fund will set aside $1 billion nationally over ten years to fund local projects in communities under 100,000 in population.

Initial Building Canada Fund Details

Building Canada Fund:

  • $4B National Infrastructure Fund
  • $10B Provincial/Territorial Infrastructure Fund; of which is the $1B Small Communities Fund – 100,000 population or lower (eligible to apply to other components as well)
National Allocation and other Matters:
  • 250M Base Funding for all provinces plus per capita amount – Ontario’s portion is allocated at $2.7B over ten years
  • P3 Screen – required for all projects above $100M and if indicated appropriate for P3, federal funding would be contingent on P3 project being undertaken
National Infrastructure Fund – Major Infrastructure Projects with National Significance (including private infrastructure) Categories:
  • Highways + Major Roads
  • Public Transit
  • Rail Infrastructure
  • Airports
  • Ports
  • Intelligent Transportation
  • Disaster Mitigation
  • Provincial/Territorial Infrastructure Fund (including Small Communities Fund) Categories
  • Highways + Major Roads (that have economic significance; this would limit the types of roads that would be eligible)
  • Public Transit
  • Drinking water
  • Wastewater
  • Solid waste
  • Green Energy
  • Brown fields redevelopment
  • Connectivity and Broadband (in addition to $350M in Budget 2014)
  • Short line rail
  • Short sea shipping
  • Local and regional airports
  • Northern infrastructure (limited to the Territories)
  • Innovation (knowledge infrastructure) – mostly post-secondary institutions
  • Disaster mitigation
Federal funding for all project categories will be limited to one-third, except Highways + Major Roads and Public Transit.

Applications are anticipated spring 2014.