Province Announces Gas Tax Funding for Municipalities
Jackie Armstrong-Homeniuk
MLA for Fort Saskatchewan-Vegreville
Recently, the Alberta government announced recent developments with the Gas Tax Fund (GTF), as well as a list of newly-approved projects. GTF is a stream that provides capital funding to help municipalities build and revitalize their local infrastructure and create jobs.
Fort Saskatchewan-Vegreville received GTF funding for different projects throughout the constituency. A few projects that received funding are Bruderheim which received $202,854 for construction of sidewalk, Innisfree received $218,000 for replacement of sidewalks, and the County of Minburn received $175,000 to replace a bridge culvert on Township Road 520.
The federal government proposed new federal firearms legislation recently, this news was followed by a statement from Minister of Justice, Kaycee Madu. Minister Madu expressed that the new legislation may include a few useful measures, but it appears Ottawa is only interested in targeting law-abiding gun owners.
An overwhelming majority of guns used in crimes are illegally smuggled across the United States border. The Alberta government fully supports a crackdown on smuggled guns.
We are also bewildered by the supposed provision for municipal bylaw gun bans. Hence, the note worthiness of MLA Michaela Glasgo’s Private Member’s Bill 211, which would limit municipalities’ ability to pass bylaws on these matters.
I wrote a letter to the federal Liberal government about its continued failure to procure and deliver vaccines for Canadians. As of February 11th, we were 38th in the world for vaccinations.
The provinces have proven they have the ability to administer the vaccines in a timely and efficient manner, but the federal government needs to do more to procure and deliver additional doses. Canadians always have been leaders in the global stage, frankly it is embarrassing how poorly the federal government is handling on the vaccine file.
I expressed this same sentiment in my letter to the Minister of Public Services and Procurement, Anita Annand, and I asked for the federal government to act now and fight for Canadians to secure more vaccine doses.