City of Lethbridge advocating to increase federal airport upgrade fund

Jul 11, 2019 | 9:31 AM

LETHBRIDGE, AB – Lethbridge City Council decided this week that they will lobby the federal government to substantially increase the Airport Capital Assistance Program (ACAP).

This includes writing to Lethbridge MP Rachel Harder, Transportation Minister Marc Garneau, the leaders of all federal parties, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM), the Regional Community Airports of Canada, and the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association.

The ACAP, which gives grants to 200 local and regional airports across the country, has been funded to the tune of $38-million dollars each year since 1998.

Council agreed that the fund has been stretched thin in recent years as more airports push for funding and the upgrades they are asking for have become more and more expensive.

They, coinciding with the original ask from the FCM, is to nearly triple the ACAP to $95-million per year.

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Mayor Chris Spearman says they hope to take advantage of an increased fund for the Lethbridge Airport.

“If we didn’t have a functioning airport, it would really harm our economy going forward. Businesses need to have a viable airport and if we’re to compete in the world of the future, we need to export products quickly, we need to be able to send things back and forth, business people need to be able to come into the City of Lethbridge reliably.”

As much as $35-million in upgrades and expansion has been identified for the airport, about $7-million of which for work on the terminal, does not qualify for ACAP funding. The other $28-million would be for things like the runway, lighting, and other technology would be part of that.

Spearman says they already have the support of the provincial minister of transportation for their federal funding application and has been in talks with the minister in Ottawa for some time now.

by David Opinko