Prince Albert City Manager Sherry Person, Montreal Lake Cree Nation Councillor Jeff Badger, Mayor Greg Dionne, Special Projects lead for the Montreal Lakes Cree Nation Sheila Musqua Keewatin, and Lac La Ronge Indian Band Councillor Dean Roberts pose for a photo together after the  announcement. (Nick Nielsen/paNOW)

By Susan McNeil

Federal funding hope

Mayor and Chief sell event centre plan in Ottawa

Nov 8, 2024 | 1:04 PM

A joint effort to convince the federal government to put some money into Prince Albert’s proposed event centre went well, said Mayor Greg Dionne.

Dionne went to the nation’s capital with Montreal Lake Cree Nation Chief Joyce McLeod to ask the feds to put $45 million into the building that would go into The Yard district.

“What we’re doing is, not one department can give us the $45 million but they believe that all the departments together, they can sort of piece meal it together,” said Dionne.

Should the federal government agree to fund that amount, the province and city would also need to kick in equal shares.

The City of Prince Albert and the Woodland Cree (which includes Montreal Lake) signed an MOU in September in order to boost the chance of getting funding for the event centre.

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A depiction of the Event Centre.

The Woodland Cree would own 45 per cent of the building and the city would own the rest. Dionne said it is the first such agreement in Western Canada.

Dionne said he and McLeod met with Service Canada, the finance department, the sports ministry, the Parliamentary Secretary and Prime Minister Trudeau’s office.

Funding is generally proportioned by population, so Dionne said they asked if there was a way for communities in Saskatchewan, with 1.2 million people, to still get projects like the event centre funded.

“They said yes, there is a formula that will help us get that. I think the biggest thing was, this trip was more focused. The first trip was which direction we should go,” he said.

Staff at the departments they visited gave them tips on where and how to apply for certain programs.

An unexpected benefit was finding out there were other programs for different purposes that the city can also apply for, said Dionne, such as getting funding for being an evacuation centre for northern communities.

Grants are announced in the fall so Dionne said he expects to know soon whether they were successful in obtaining the money they wanted for the event centre.

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susan.mcneil@pattisonmedia.com