It would obviously be impolite to turn down the gift of cold, hard cash, but sometimes I have to shake my head at the mysterious ways in which government works.
The Corporation of Delta sent out a media advisory Monday about an announcement that was to take place the following morning regarding the Harris Barn, the century-old structure that's been relocated to the grounds of the Kirkland House in Ladner. On Tuesday, our MP, Kerry-Lynne Findlay, was on hand to unveil the news: Ottawa is contributing a significant amount towards refurbishing the barn and turning it into a public facility.
The feds were also making news elsewhere on Tuesday when they announced the immediate closure of the Kitsilano Coast Guard Station in Vancouver, a move everyone knew was coming but one that caught many off guard nonetheless. At the same time Ottawa was saving $700,000 by closing a coast guard station it couldn't afford to operate anymore, it was handing over $250,000 to Delta to help transform an old barn into a public meeting place.
I believe the barn will become a valuable community amenity, so I'm not knocking efforts to restore and relocate it, but I have to question the priorities at work here. I realize the monies we're talking about come from two different pots, and that barn funding is one-time only whereas the coast guard is an ongoing cost, but we're still talking about tax dollars and, I would hope, the best way to spend them.
Watching it from afar, it seemed the campaign to keep the Kitsilano Coast Guard Station open became a bit of a motherhood issue as it received support from pretty much everyone beyond the federal Tory caucus. It crossed B.C.'s often-rigid political lines while offering dire warnings of what could happen on the water in the future.
The closure went ahead anyway, presumably due to a budget crunch, yet on that fateful day the same government was just a few kilometres away dishing out a quarter of a million dollars to pay for enhanced lighting, a mobile lift and other enhancements for an old barn.
Again, I don't fault the civic types that have done a nice job of accessing senior government cost-sharing programs over the last few years to stretch the dollars they collect from us. If Ottawa is going to hand out $150 million through its Economic Action Plan in a bid to put people back to work, Delta might as well get its slice of that pie.
It's just too bad there wasn't any left for the coast guard.
