City Coun. Ralph Cipolla is livid over news that Brantford is receiving $12 million from Ottawa to clean up a brownfield site in that city's core.

Repeated pleas for federal help in reviving a local polluted property, proposed as the home of Orillia's recreation complex, have fallen on deaf ears, Cipolla charges.

“Here we are in the boonies and our MP isn't going to bat for us,” he said.

“We have been asking the same thing of our MP since he has been in office,” he added.
“Why are we different from Brantford?”

The Ontario government has committed $4 million to the project while Ottawa has offered nothing, Cipolla noted.

“The province came through,” he added.

"(MP Bruce) Stanton said he would look into it. We have not heard one iota in the last year-and-a-half."

Simcoe North MP Stanton said the Brantford project has been under development for “four or five years.”

It differs from the Orillia experience in that it involves partnerships with the private sector. "It was really an all-encompassing approach to brownfields remediation," he said. "It is certainly one we need to look to as a model for communities who have inner-city brownfields."

Save for a so-called "green" fund managed by the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, Ottawa does not presently have an infrastructure program under which those projects are eligible, he added.

Stanton said he has raised the brownfields issue during private meetings with caucus colleagues, telling them the former industrial sites should be eligible for assistance.

He remains hopeful that brownfields will qualify for federal funding under the soon-to-be unveiled Building Canada Fund.

"Certainly, federally, that is our intent going in," Stanton said. "We are pushing hard to ensure brownfields are part of that mix." In the same breath, he cautioned that the proposed infrastructure fund would require matching supports from the Ontario government.

"It has to be a federal/provincial agreement," he added.

Stanton denied that Orillia has been given short shrift, calling the accusation a "bogus argument."

Ottawa already contributes millions of dollars to the municipality through transfers of the federal gas tax, he said.

"When you have a stable, predictable income stream coming into your municipality, it gives the city a source of funds it can depend on, that it can flow to those capital needs," he said.

Ultimately, "It is up to the city to make their decisions based on the resources they have on hand," he added.

Provincial Health Promotions Minister Jim Watson earlier this year challenged Ottawa to match Ontario's $4-million commitment to the local project.

He described the proposed facility as an investment in the health of local residents.

"The jurisdiction for health care is at the provincial level," Stanton countered at the time.

Ottawa bears some responsibility for the property's remediation because military components were once produced there for the federal government, Cipolla argues.

"We have done our homework, our risk assessments and everything else, and all of sudden some other community is getting $12 million," he said.

Pete Bowen, a former member of the original MURF committee, was equally surprised by the news.

"We have been in the queue a long time waiting for this. When somebody else comes along and gets the money, you'd like to know, what were the parameters that allowed them to qualify? What do we need to do to qualify? That would be my question.”