Deveryn Ross had a good column in the Winnipeg Free Press today that highlighted wasteful spending in the name of "flood assistance."

He touched on some information I shared with him a while ago; nearly $100,000 spent on a project that included hiring a consultant (or two) from Toronto to meet with eight Brandon businesses and tell them how to recover from the flood 2011. Ross summed it well with:

"To summarize what happened here, a project designed to revive Brandon's economy spent almost $85,000 on a Toronto consultant to provide eight local businesses with information that is mostly available for free on the Internet. That payment stimulated Toronto's economy, but it did nothing to help restore Brandon's economic activity to pre-flood levels." 

Although the spending was likely well intentioned, it seems to be another classic case of a government throwing money around too carelessly. Unfortunately, the spending in Brandon was not alone. Below are some other questionable projects that received funding through the same program:

• White Water Community Economic Development Organization (WCEDO) received $32,000 for a sound system and other technology for a community hall. From what I'm told the hall wasn't touched by a drop of water. How a new sound system in a community hall will help "attract additional business" is also a question worth asking???
  
  
• RM of St Laurent CDC received $79,100 to help with a housing development proposal around a golf course. It also received $19,310.07 to hire someone to help try and get more money from the government by working on "grant writing."
  
  
• RM of Portage (Fort La Reine) received $25,000 to upgrade the Fort la Reine Museum, Pioneer Village and Tourist Bureau. Nice facility, but it too wasn't hit by flooding.

I'm not going to suggest all the money handed out through the program ($2.3 million) was a waste of money. Some communities spent funds on actual flood-related issues; installing culverts, fixing boat docks damaged by flooding and other repair projects.

However, I think the program does include a number of examples of questionable "Hail Mary" spending by government. Attach some money to a football, throw it towards the end zone and hope something good happens.

Speaking of "hope," hopefully we don't see a repeat of such careless spending after this year's flood.

Here's the link if you want to go through the list of grant recipients - click here.
If you want to see additional docs from the Brandon example - click here and here.