CHARLOTTETOWN, P.E.I. — P.E.I.’s finance minister says the province is leaving no federal dollars on the table.
Darlene Compton told The Guardian all allocations received under the federal-provincial safe restart agreement, which provides funding for COVID-19 specific programs, will be spent by the end of March. Compton was responding to a report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, released earlier this week, that said millions of dollars under the agreement had remained unspent by the P.E.I. government.
"The money is there; it will be spent. Most of it will be spent, for sure, if not all," Compton told The Guardian on Friday.
The report, Picking up the Tab, penned by researcher David Macdonald, examined publicly available information from federal and provincial governments about COVID-19 spending.
The report found 95 per cent of government COVID-19 spending on P.E.I. originated from the federal government. But Macdonald also found several areas from the safe restart agreement where plans to spend specific allocations of funding could not be found.
P.E.I. received $52 million as part of the July 2020 safe restart agreement, with allocations earmarked for health care, long-term care, municipalities, personal protective equipment and childcare.
Compton said officials from the Department of Finance did not speak to Macdonald before the report was published.
"The general concern that I had was we didn't really get a chance to interact with the author,” she said.
“I think COVID spending across the country is a very give-and-take cyclical thing. You're getting so much money from Ottawa, but you don't know when you're getting it."
Compton did not dispute the claim that 95 per cent of COVID-19 spending in P.E.I. has come from the federal government, mostly in the form of massive business and income support programs, such as the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB).
Macdonald’s report claimed $4.3 million out of a total $33.1 million of federal funding allocated to P.E.I. for health-related spending had been unspent. His report also said plans to spend $1.8 million allocated for training and supports for early childhood educators could not be found.
However, a list of COVID-19 health spending, provided by the Department of Finance, indicated P.E.I.'s spending added up to $42.8 million – $9.7 million more than the federal funding under the agreement.
Another breakdown said the province has spent $3.9 million out of $4.5 million from safe restart federal dollars for childcare expenses but also noted $600,000 was "in process for allocation."
P.E.I. COVID-19 Spending Un... by The Guardian
Officials also confirmed two P.E.I. non-profit groups have applied for a total of $2.3 million in funding from the rapid housing initiative, with sponsorship from the provincial government. Approval has not yet been received. Macdonald had said no applications had been made under the affordable housing program.
Provincial officials confirmed Macdonald’s finding that the provincial government has not provided municipalities with its $8.4 million share of a 50-50 cost-split of funding under the safe restart agreement.
In an interview, Macdonald said the study was intended to bring transparency to COVID-19 spending. He pointed to the $65 million in COVID-19 contingency funds that were included in P.E.I.’s spring budget. These funds are distributed among 15 departments, but the budget contains little in the way of a detailed breakdown.
“I don't think they are being dishonest; I think they have allocated this money,” Macdonald said of the federal dollars.
“But there's a difference between the government saying they have allocated the money and then providing a list of the programs to which they have allocated it."
When asked about the COVID-19 contingency funds, Compton said P.E.I. was one of few provinces to release a budget after the pandemic had begun. But this budget also was completed before negotiations with the federal government had been concluded, making detailed breakdowns about spending difficult.
“We wanted to be there for Islanders immediately," Compton said.
Stu Neatby is the political reporter for The Guardian. [email protected] @stu_neatby
