OTTAWA—Opposition parties say that a plan to shift more than $2 billion worth of federal infrastructure spending points to problems with one of the government’s cornerstone programs, despite what the Liberals say. The two Liberal funds — one for public transit projects, the other for water systems — have together doled out about $82 million, leaving about $5.2 billion unspent. The federal government regularly has to carry over infrastructure money from one fiscal year to the next: Spending analyses have shown about one-quarter of infrastructure funds don’t get spent in the year for which they are budgeted. Federal dollars only flow once project proponents submit receipts for reimbursement, often leaving a lag of weeks, months or years between when work takes place and when infrastructure money is actually spent. Read more: Toronto may leave $121M unspent in federal transit funding Ottawa to require Ontario to pay one-third of Toronto’s new transit projects Taxpayers could see higher risk under new infrastructure bank

Source: thestar October 31, 2017 18:56 UTC