Who Should Pay for What?

Even if you don’t live in or near Cobourg, Ontario, if you love lawn bowling and always want to make sure that your club’s green are as spiffy as they can be, this story might interest you. It involves the Cobourg Lawn Bowling Club in Ontario, Canada and the federal government of Canada. The Club is moving, due to some parking troubles as well as problems with the clubhouse. Looking for a new place for the bowlers to call home, they turned to the local community center, thinking that would be the most suitable place, if only the community center had lawn bowling greens. Because it didn’t, and entirely new ones would have to be built, the question comes into play: Who’s going to pay for them?

If you’re thinking the community center, you’d be wrong. Not only are they being gracious enough to allow the Club to come play in the first place, but the greens will not be used by them. So why would they pay. The Club had this exact same question though and decided to apply for a grant to the federal government to try and get the funds to pay for the expansion. The grant was approved and so, sure enough, you’d think that the Canadian government was going to pay, right? Guess again.

Since the time the Cobourg Lawn Bowling Club has been approved for the grant, the federal government has now come forward to say that they won’t be paying for it, or at least not all of it. The government says that they will only pay for the land within the designated area and that any design, construction, or maintenance will be the responsibility of the Club’s. Still seems to be somewhat fair, if you don’t consider the fact that all of those inclusions were detailed in the grant application before it was approved.

Currently, the situation seems to rest with the Cobourg Lawn Bowling Club sitting on their hands. They have filled in their local MP about the situation, and they have now been referred onto the Ministry.