Carol Kelly, Executive Director at the Medicine River Wildlife Centre (rdnewsNOW file photo)

By Josh Hall (Twitter: @Vancan19)

project funding still needed

Wildlife centre frustated with delay in grant application response

Aug 19, 2019 | 2:45 PM

The Medicine River Wildlife Centre is growing frustrated as they try to complete a years-long renovation project.

Executive Director Carol Kelly says they applied for $125,000 through the Community Facility Enhancement Program (CFEP) to help finish its $1.2 million wild animal hospital.

Kelly was expecting an answer by the end of July, but when that came and went without a response, she contacted the Government of Alberta to see what was happening.

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The response she received from the director of the Community Grants Unit dated August 12 stated that, “We want to assure you that the program is not on hold. Please be aware that processing time is taking longer than usual.”

But Kelly says the expectation of a response by July comes from the “contract” she says she signed when making the CFEP application.

A form which remains on the Government of Alberta website, entitled CFEP Program Guidelines (Nov. 2016)

“The biggest problem with all of this is the lack of communication. I’m a reasonable person and if you give me a reasonable explanation for something, I get it,” says Kelly.

“But when the deadline comes and goes, we don’t even hear anything, and the only way I got a response was I had to contact them, you would’ve thought at least a professional government organization would’ve sent out at least a bulk email to everyone who’d applied. There was complete radio silence.”

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Danielle Murray, Press Secretary for Minister of Culture, Multiculturalism and Status of Women Leela Aheer, writes in a statement to rdnewsNOW:

“All organizations have now been sent notifications regarding the status of their grants, we thank them for their patience during the government transition. We ask that if an organization hasn’t received notification they contact the department to confirm their information is up to date. The Community Initiatives Program and Community Facility Enhancement Program grants provides essential funding to approximately 1,200 Alberta non-profit organizations every year. Last Friday Minister Leela Sharon Aheer announced the transition to E-transfers for CIP and CFEP grants, this modernization of the payment process will ensure our valued non-profit organizations will receive their grant funding in a timely manner.”

A further timeline for CFEP grant approvals was not given.