Heritage Minister Moore to Edmonton re: Expo 2017 funding request: "Nope"

Heritage Minister James Moore wrote a letter today to Edmonton Mayor Stephen Mandel. Edmonton had wanted the federal government to help fund its bid to host Expo 2017. Here is an excerpt of the letter Moore wrote, provided by Moore's staff. (Read the full text of the letter):

“A key element of the next phase of our Government’s Economic Action Plan will be to return to balanced budgets. As the Minister of Finance emphasized last Friday, our Government will not make significant new government spending commitments. We simply cannot afford the risk of running large deficits longer than necessary.

This means we have to make some difficult decisions and one of those decisions is not to proceed with funding a bid to host Expo 2017. Supporting an expo bid would necessitate a federal investment that could reach over $1 billion once we take into account the full cost of security and other federal obligations to host an event of this size.

In this context, it would not be responsible to support a Canadian bid to host an international exhibition in 2017.”

Mandel is furious and is blaming Edmonton MP and Public Works Minister Rona Ambrose.

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *