On December 2, Frontiers and New Frontiers Executives and staff were delightfully surprised by some very welcome visitors: Honourable Joe Fontana, Federal Minister of Labour and Housing; Honourable Maria Minna, MP for Beaches-East York; and their entourage.

After a quick tour of Project Amik, our guests lingered for a brief meeting in the Frontiers/New Frontiers office. Both Mr. Fontana and Mrs. Minna assured Messrs. Stark, Guzman and Catto of the Martin government’s good faith respecting removal of the three millstones around affordable social housing Project Amik’s financial neck: CMHC mortgage insurance, GST, and Project Development Fund “debt” totaling over $500,000. Again and again, Mr. Fontana and Mrs. Minna assured us that real dollars would be forthcoming, well before Christmas.

In September of 2004 in his Ottawa office, Mr. Fontana had assured Messrs. Lawrence Gladue (President of Frontiers Foundation), Dennis Stark, Marco Guzman and Charles Catto accompanied by consultant Ed Starr, that he “would find a way” to fund both New Frontiers (Project Amik) and Frontiers Foundation (Operation Beaver). It’s been a long fifteen months, especially for those who still aren’t able to live in the housing that could have been built if we’d had the dollars.