The Steinbach city council deadline for funding to be in place for the proposed Performing Arts Centre is Friday. The city has committed $7.5 million to the project, contingent on getting $7.5 million from both the federal and provincial governments and $3 million in private fundraising. City council passed a motion in December that stated its funding for the project would lapse if all the money was not in place by June 30th. Mayor Chris Goertzen says the city is still waiting to hear from the provincial and federal governments.

"We certainly know that there have been significant efforts by the Friends of the Performing Arts Centre to raise funds and raise awareness of the project. The applications are in with the federal and provincial governments for the Building Canada contribution portion. Of course, we haven't heard from the provincial or federal governments but they actually haven't announced any of the projects for that fund. So we continue to wait and council will obviously evaluate once the deadline has passed and we'll go from there."

City council will hold its summer study session next Tuesday. Goertzen says he doesn't know whether council will extend the deadline.

"There might be a chance. I can't speak for council until we have that discussion but we're going to have our study session on the 4th of July. We're going to talk extensively about recreation and the possible new direction that we want to head and it'll be up to council to make that decision collectively and we'll go from there. Obviously, significant efforts have been put into this and we continue to wait to hear from the other levels of government."

Goertzen adds council thought it was being fairly generous and realistic in setting a June 30th deadline for all the money to be in place.

"At the same time, council needs to move on. We need to continue to talk about recreation and culture and other infrastructure challenges and we need to be realistic in where we're heading. Those full discussions will happen on July 4th."

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