By Chad Ingram

Recently elected Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes-Brock MP Jamie Schmale told Algonquin Highlands councillors last week he’ll be working to get local townships as much of the billions of stimulus dollars being dished out by the Liberal government as possible.

Schmale who’s been making the rounds introducing himself to local councils visited Algonquin Highlands councillors during a Jan. 21 meeting.

Schmale said the decision to run deficits to stimulate the economy – the Liberals pledged deficits of $10 billion a year during the 2015 election campaign – had been made by Canadians during the election.
“Now it’s my job to identify priorities across the riding and to try to hook people into those different funding opportunities” he said. “If we’re going to have this money we might as well have it in our riding.”

Schmale said he understands that access to reliable high-speed Internet is still a major issue in Haliburton County particularly in Algonquin Highlands.
“This township has a lot of gaps” he said. “As we all know if you’re not connected to the Internet you’re not connected to the world.”

Schmale said the Trent-Severn Waterway “is always a challenge” and that he’d already met with Ted Spence chairman of the Coalition for Equitable Flow.
Recently Haliburton County council voted to join forces with the CEWF as well as politicians in North Kawartha and Trent Lakes to form an organization to speak with one unified voice on behalf of stakeholders in the region which contains much of the feeder lakes that supply water to the Trent Severn canal.

While Haliburton County may represent the smallest portion of the riding “I won’t forget about the county” Schmale promised councillors joking that predecessor Barry Devolin from the county made him sign an oath in blood.

A former radio journalist Schmale who grew up in Bobcaygeon was Devolin’s executive assistant during the MP’s 11 years in office.