By Prescott James, The Daily Graphic
Intent on getting the voices in her riding heard, Portage-Lisgar MP Candice Hoeppner brought with the honourable John Baird, Member of Parliament and Federal Minister of Transportation, Infrastructure and Communities to Portage la Prairie.
Hoeppner and Baird came to Portage for two reasons, the first of which was to have a roundtable discussion with local mayors, reeves, councillors and business leaders to discuss infrastructure planning for the Portage-Lisgar riding.
Although it was a closed-door discussion and Hoeppner was unable to talk about what exactly was discussed, she did state the meeting was positive for all involved.
"There was a lot of good questions raised, and there were a lot of answers given. It was a really good roundtable discussion," stated Hoeppner.
In addition to the positive talk with community leaders, Hoeppner noted that the positive talk was spurred by its positive intention.
"I wanted to bring Minister Baird into the riding to give leaders here in the community access to the minister, and I wanted the minister to meet these leaders as well, just so he can get a sense of who we are and what we are doing," stated Hoeppner.
Despite the lack of specifics from the roundtable discussion, Minister Baird did provide a brief glimpse into the content of the meeting.
"We talked about the various infrastructure needs and what the priorities of the different municipalities are. We also spoke to some business leaders and the municipalities about what we can do to cut red tape and get the stimulus money flowing so we can create jobs," said Baird.
As Baird explained ,the one big message he got from the meeting was that smaller communities do need to get their fair share of infrastructure spending, and he noted the federal government has already agreed to put more money into smaller communities.
"We will be able to do an extra $50 million-worth of projects around Manitoba ... that is new money that people didn't expect, so we look forward to getting that money flowing and getting jobs created. We want to build a lot more infrastructure — put a shot in the arm in the Canadian economy — so that we can correct this economic downturn faster," stated Baird.
Baird also noted it is important for Members of Parliament to get out to smaller communities because after doing so himself, he now he has something tangible to take back to Ottawa.
"Not all of the wisdom rests in Ottawa. I work with Candice on a daily basis, so she encouraged me to come out, and I did a lot of listening. I (now) have a list of a lot of projects that need to be funded," Baird said.
After the roundtable discussion, Hoeppner and Baird bustled off to Hoeppner's fundraising dinner held at Canad Inns ,where Trevor Kennerd, from the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, was the keynote speaker. Out of the 150 or so in attendance, the more notable names included Conservative MP Steven Fletcher, Portage Mayor Ken Brennan, MLA David Faurschou and Rural Municipality of Portage Reeve Toby Trimble.
