Liberals pledge money for Atlantic roads

OTTAWA — New Brunswick motorists and truckers won’t see critical highway and road improvements if the Liberals are defeated in the upcoming federal election.

According to the Moncton Times & Transcript, Fredericton Liberal candidate and incumbent MP Andy Scott, also Indian affairs minister, said federal cabinet ministers were pushing to create a separate funding program to the national highway system that would have seen dollars flow to Routes 8, 11 and 17, before opposition parties brought the government down with a non-confidence vote.

He promised work would continue if he was re-elected and the Liberal government regained power, the newspaper reports.

Earlier this year, Federal Transport Minister Jean Lapierre added a host of secondary, “tier-two,” roads as part of the national highway system. The move allowed Ottawa to directly fund improvements to those roads although there was no new money at the time.

Scott said he was working with Infrastructure Minister John Godfrey and Lapierre to include money in the upcoming budget for tier-two routes.

— from the Moncton Times & Transcript