(file photo/battlefordsNOW staff)

By Angela Brown

Support for infrastructure

City hopeful for protection from large-scale construction PST costs

Feb 9, 2021 | 10:06 AM

The City of North Battleford again discussed the impact of PST on construction for a major project underway at council’s meeting on Monday.

The city was recently informed its large-scale Primary Sanitary Sewer Trunk upgrade is estimated to cost $1.5 million more than originally projected. From that amount, $745,000 is the anticipated cost of construction PST.

City manager Randy Patrick said the city’s application for the project was submitted in January 2017. According to the province, the PST on construction went into effect as of April 1, 2017.

“There was no notice. It had already gone in, and we were kind of stuck with the PST costs,” Patrick said.

Mayor David Gillan has already spoken to the local MLA Jeremy Cockrill about the city’s concerns.

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“I’ve given him the relevant information and he is now discussing it internally with the various departments in the province,” Gillan said.

Gillan is hopeful the project may fall under the province’s PST Transition Rules policy, in the amendments to the Provincial Sales Tax Act in 2017. If it meets the conditions, it can be exempt from the charge.

“The discussion would be whether we qualify for one of these transitional rulings. Right now we are working on it. It is actually before our MLA right now, and he is undertaking to see if he can assist us to get this done,” Gillan said.

The submitted cost estimate in 2017 for the project totalled $13,656,530 — a value that has been approved by the provincial and federal governments. Based on this earlier figure, the federal and provincial governments were committed to contributing about two-thirds of the funding through the New Building Canada Fund program.

With the anticipated PST cost on construction and other increased costs in the latest update, the project is now estimated at $15.16 million in total.

angela.brown@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @battlefordsNOW