Who paid for “Duff’s Ditch?”
Apr 06, 2009
duff, floodway, pension, roblin
Every time a flood rears its ugly head in Southern Manitoba, Winnipeggers are reminded, and thankful for the “Ditch that Duff built”. After all, the Red River Floodway – in use since 1969 to divert flood waters around the city’s eastern side – has protected thousands of homes and saved an estimated $10 billion in flood damages.
Former Premier Duff Roblin – credited as the driving force behind the floodway project – was mocked during and following the project’s completion. But during the floods of 1979, 1997, 2006 and now again in 2009, Roblin has been called a “visionary” for pushing ahead with the project.
The Floodway was completed in six years. It cost $63.2-million, of which Ottawa paid almost 60 per cent, and the province kicked in the remaining amount. But no one usually talks about how the province paid their share.
The provincial government diverted much of that money from the Manitoba Civil Service Pension Plan into infrastructure projects like the floodway.
When Roblin’s Conservatives formed government in 1958 and started planning the massive ditch, they were met with much political and public opposition. Rather than raise taxes to fund projects like the floodway, they discovered it was cheaper to simply redirect the money that would have gone to fund the employer-paid portion of the employees’ pension fund into capital projects.
For the next forty or so years, this diversion of funds from the Province continued, at the expense of Manitoba’s Civil Servants. That money in the fund during the good economic times could have bolstered the pension plan to help weather the storm during an economic downturn, like the one we’re now seeing.
It’s not as though the dollars for projects like the floodway, weren’t well spent. It’s obvious that such projects were of significant benefit to Manitobans, particularly to Winnipeggers who are bracing for another spring flood.
But if you truly want to give credit where credit due, thank Mr. Roblin and give a tip of the hat to all of the civil servants who paid for such projects with their pensions.
Comments
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Gov't workers often make sacrfices, so after reading about this, I'm not surprised. As a civil servant we often lost out on many benefits that a non-civil servant enjoys, like Christmas parties, bonuses and other perks. And if there is ever a problem with the economy, the civil servant is the first to go. Although the floodway has helped the city on more than one occassion, I don't remember hearing about our pensions being used to fund this project. I'm glad to know that times have changed and that our current gov't is more transparent.
Blake - 2009-04-07 12:54