Editor:
Innovation is a wonderful word: "to bring in new methods or ideas." It stirs the imagination! It's the future, now!
Innovation was one of the criteria established by Sechelt council for our new wastewater facility. Innovation is being used by Mayor Henderson and the majority of council to justify choosing Veolia's Organica sewage treatment process to be built at the smaller Ebbtide site, rather than at the larger Lot L site. Innovation was the specific rationale used by project coordinator Paul Nash at the March 19 open house to justify council's Veolia choice, incorrectly claiming the federal gas tax fund $8 million is conditional on the project demonstrating sufficient innovation: "If it's innovative enough, we get the money, but the flip side of that, no innovation, no money."
Henderson and Nash want the public to believe they are demonstrating business acumen for having secured the federal money on the basis of innovation. Unfortunately, they are misinformed.
The government of Canada website information on the gas tax fund and the Building Canada Fund, which together will constitute a substantial portion of the Sechelt's anticipated wastewater funding, makes it clear that neither fund demands innovation as a prerequisite to funding. In fact, neither the word nor the concept of innovation appears or is intimated. The gas tax fund "supports municipal infrastructure projects that contribute to cleaner water." The Building Canada Fund simply requires that "projects improve wastewater infrastructure."
What appears to be true is that any project at any site that contributes to improved, cleaner wastewater infrastructure will be deemed fundable by the feds. If there is an argument in favour of the Veolia option based on perceived innovation, federal funding isn't it. Any improvement over existing processes at either site with a lower price would be federally fundable regardless of innovation.
Jef Keighley, Halfmoon Bay
