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London councillor hopes to recover $10 million in funding given to London Medical Network

Councillor Maureen Cassidy during a committee meeting on Dec. 4, 2018. Matthew Trevithick / Global News

A London city councillor is hoping to recover $10 million in funding given to the London Medical Network back in 2014.

The agreement with the London Medical Network was first made with the 2010-2014 council, with the 2014-2018 council approving the funding, but Coun. Maureen Cassidy believes the agreement is null and void.

“It says right in the agreement London will put the money into the network once we have the funding commitment from Western [University] and a funding commitment from FedDev,” she told 980 CFPL.

“FedDev has turned the medical network down twice, if not three times, in their applications for funding. Western has now pulled out. So we’re not going to see the $20 million that has been committed by Western.”

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Cassidy added that the network has also failed to generate the jobs and economic spin-off promised in the agreement.

“The agreement is very clear that there would be hundreds of millions of dollars in economic spin-off — direct economic spin-off to London’s economy — and that there would be 500 new jobs created. They tell me there are 50. They’ve never shown me what those 50 jobs are. I’m aware of one job that has a $0 salary,” she explained.

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“They’ve never come to us really and explained these grants that they’ve provided to TechAlliance. These grants are supposed to be a direct benefit to the London economy. The City of London should not be financing jobs at startup companies in Kitchener-Waterloo.”

Cassidy plans to put forward a motion at Tuesday’s full council meeting.

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