The Ontario government announced a second round of financial aid for municipalities across the province, including $20.8 million for Waterloo Region and the municipalities it encompasses.
A total of $695 million, which will be distributed across Ontario, comes from the safe-restart agreement which was created jointly by the feds and the province.
“This joint funding will help Ontario’s municipalities recover from the impacts of COVID-19 faster, by helping them to enter into 2021 without operating deficits from this year,” said Steve Clark, Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister.
“By ensuring our municipal partners are in a sound financial position to begin the new year, they can focus on keeping their capital projects on track while continuing to provide the critical services their residents rely on.”
A portion of the money is being split province-wide while another will go to 48 municipalities who applied for additional funding and are deemed the hardest hit.
The region’s largest municipality is also the largest beneficiary of Tuesday’s announcement.
Kitchener has been allocated $9.6 million with $7.1 million of that coming from application-based funding.
The City of Waterloo was also deemed to be one of the hardest hit locales as it will receive $3.6 million including $2.4 million being application-based.
The Region itself, will get $5.6 million while the City of Cambridge will get $1.3 million — neither of which will receive any application-based funding nor did any of the townships. North Dumfries will get $94,000, Wellesley is being provided $86,000, Wilmot receives a total of $204,000 while Woolwich is getting $233,000.
There will likely be more money coming to the region in January as the province says it mailed out letters to municipalities letting them know that another $1.3 billion is being shelled out to municipal transit systems next month.
A total of $4 billion was provided by the feds to the Ontario government as part of the safe start agreement.
An initial round of funding went out in August in which area municipalities received $43 million, which included money allocated for Grand River Transit.
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