The RM of Portage la Prairie's joining other municipalities in efforts to lobby the Association of Manitoba Municipalities (AMM) to, in turn, lobby the province to reinstate the Manitoba Roads Improvement Program (MRIP). It's a cost sharing program requiring municipalities to foot 50 percent of the total amount required for any given project without any red tape, and through a single window for application. The AMM originally developed the program with the province.

The RM of Portage applied earlier this year to obtain funding for Simplot Road, where Roquette is constructing its new pea protein processing facility.

"They are not providing the same amount of funding that they were in the past," says Reeve Kam Blight. "So, the Manitoba Roads Improvements Program is no longer going to be in play any more. And for this year, actually, they reduced the funding. It was $14-million and they've reduced the funding down to $2.25-million. As you can imagine, there's not as much money to go around, and there are going to be a lot of projects that are not approved."

Blight says the last number of years saw approval from the province for RM projects totaling about $225,000. To lose that amount of funding understandably hurts.

He notes the province brought the funding forward to put into the new Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program. Blight explains this is a broad program and it covers many different categories. This means, he adds, there's no guarantee that the money will go toward road improvements. And there's, therefore, no guarantee the RM of Portage can get any of that money. Blight says there's also no guarantee the province will put forward the $14-million toward that.

Blight says other sources of revenue must now be discovered in order to carry out these projects. He explains this Manitoba Roads and Improvements Program had its 50 percent matched amount provided by gas tax money from the federal government. He says, if the RM was a successful bidder in this new program, they can't use the gas tax money. Blight notes matching funds, therefore, have to come from another source.

He adds taxation is the only way municipalities can generate revenue.