Here is the beginning of the project of art in a public space.  It is an art project that was designed to energize  and act as a way finder.  I am excited to show you .. Where to begin?   My town, the town of Cobourg, located in Ontario Canada is building a fantastic  building aptly called the Cobourg Community Centre.  There was a call out to artist for presentations of art for the grand hallway.  I was awarded the contract to do a large floating sculpture of one hundred fish.    In keeping with the community idea I proposed to incorporate work from the community.   The fish are all sculpted in wire frames with textiles quilted and stretched in the frames.  The one hundred fish, all individually assembled,  will hang together like a school of fish.  Whimsical, colourful  and creative.    Here are some images of me holding up some of the completed fish.  Imagine the effect that one hundred such fish will have.!!!!!

The first step took me out of my studio to sculpt the fish shapes.  I engaged the help of a colleague and friend,  Edward Hagedorn,  to do the welding.   I bent the steel rods to the shape I wanted and Ed did the actual welding.  An artist and art therapist by profession,  Ed enjoyed the endless possibilities of shapes that one could produce with a simple placement of the rods.  “Like this or like that?”  he asked before each weld.  And after all, how mean, or how sweet did I want each fish to look?

As the project continues, engaging the community has taken on an exciting element!  What is that saying? — “People do the weirdest things?”  To say that the community is doing weird things is not quite accurate but to say that they are doing  weird and wonderful things is much, more to the point.  I am constantly amazed at how other people think,  or the actions they do.  In my workshops I find myself getting very excited by how everyone approaches colour and texture in their own way.  I found people carefully choosing the most unlikely colours and patterns, and applying them to a fish.   This is exciting!  The end result will certainly reflect a creative community.   Working with children is particularly exciting as their work is free form, and playful.  In this local elementary school I encouraged the children to place a hand print with the fabric of their choosing.

INFRASTRUCTURE
PROGRAM FUNDING

Mr. Lou Rinaldi: My question is to the Minister of Infrastructure. On December 1 of last year the minister and I visited an infrastructure stimulus project in my riding in Cobourg, the Cobourg Community Centre, or the CCC as we like to call it. This is an extraordinarily exciting project. The CCC will have a 2,000-plus-seat arena plus a smaller 400-seat arena. There will also be two gyms and change rooms and 1,000 square feet dedicated for a youth centre and three multi-purpose meeting rooms.

The CCC is on track for a grand opening this spring. However, Cobourg council still applied for an extension to the March 31, 2011, deadline to make sure that the workers have time to get the finishing touches done. My question to the minister is, will the deadline extension be granted?

Hon. Bob Chiarelli: I’d like to thank the member for the question. First, I’d like to congratulate the people of Cobourg for coming together to create this project in partnership with the federal and provincial governments and for becoming part of the largest and most successful infrastructure program in the history of the province of Ontario. Born out of the worst recession since the Great Depression, stimulus is creating 700 jobs in the Northumberland area and 300,000 across Ontario for Ontario families. Indeed, Ontario has recovered 95% of the jobs lost during the recession, compared to only 11% in the US. The federal and provincial governments have worked together to create over 9,500 projects to improve our quality of life and to improve the economy of Ontario
I’ll deal with the deadline in the supplementary.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Supplementary?

Mr. Lou Rinaldi: Minister, your comments about the community coming together are exactly right. In the case of the Cobourg Community Centre project, that’s happening in all sorts of ways. For example, with the help of Alice Vander Vennen, one of our local artists, members of the community are working together to help design 100 brightly coloured fish that will become a giant floating sculpture for the great hall entrance to the community centre. Plus, we’re not relying on just federal and provincial funds for this project. The local community is raising more than $3 million to put toward the capital costs
Again, Minister: Will the extension request for this project be approved?

Hon. Bob Chiarelli: Again, congratulations to the residents of Cobourg, a town of only 19,000, for raising $3 million towards this project. In general, we expect to approve almost every one of the extension applications we received.