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Debate surrounds FedNor's status within Industry Canada portfolio

A private member’s bill attempting to create a stand-alone agency in the north would prevent FedNor from wasting time and money, says an area MP.
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Greg Rickford, MP for Kenora (Jeff Labine, tbnewswatch.com)

A private member’s bill attempting to create a stand-alone agency in the north would prevent FedNor from wasting time and money, says an area MP.

The private member’s bill that is attempting to create the stand-alone economic development agency in Northern Ontario passed a second reading about a week ago. The bill received support from all opposition parties while the governing Conservatives argued that Industry Canada’s FedNor program did a good job.

Recently, FedNor provided more than a million dollars towards 10 community development initiatives. Details about these investments were made public at a news conference Saturday.


NDP MP Claude Gravelle, official critic of FedNor, said the program works, but isn’t affective under Industry Minister Tony Clement.

"Bureaucrats for FedNor will make a decision by giving an organization some money and then the application sits on the ministers desk for weeks and months at a time," Gravelle said. "We’re paying these bureaucrats good money to make decisions."

Gravelle said he wanted the program to distance itself from the government by becoming an agency. If FedNor became an independent agency, he said less money would be wasted.

MP Greg Rickford (Con. Kenora) said turning the program into an agency would only hurt Northern Ontario. He said the criticism from parties such as the NDP comes from their lack of support in other conservative initiatives such as the Canadian Action Plan.

"FedNor isn’t like any other program in the country," Rickford said. "What are you comparing FedNor to? The Quebec version of FedNor has the entire province drawing from it. In Ontario, we have FedNor specifically for northern Ontario."

Rickford said turning FedNor into an agency would be costly since most other agencies draw upon other provinces and jurisdictions. Northern Ontario only has one jurisdiction and FedNor didn’t need anymore levels of bureaucracy added onto it.

"Let’s cut the bureaucracy out and get the money where it belongs," he said. "We’ve been very busy across the region in a number of key areas: training small business development, putting in youth initiatives, investments in health. I’m confident that is the right track and it isn’t achieved by private members business."






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