Clement's Selection Committee Selected Themselves for G8 Funds

Another day, another terribly distressing tidbit of information on how big of a snafu this G8 legacy fund could be.

The nine municipal leaders that comprised Tony Clement's project-selection committee for the $50-million G8 legacy fund selected, well, themselves for more than $40 million of the much-maligned fund. Those nine mayors and reeves were responsible for vetting funding applications, a process usually undertaken by federal civil servants that got curiously overlooked this time around. The other six communities in Clement's riding got a piddling $2.5 million from the selection committee, while North Bay, an actual city, picked up the rest for actual improvements to things such as its airport, not for flower boxes or gazebos. The Tories say all the projects received the OK from then-infrastructure minister John Baird, although it looks like the 32 projects vetted by the committee all got the funding they requested.