The long wait to expand the Juan de Fuca seniors centre isn’t over after a funding announcement failed to materialize during the prime minister’s visit on Wednesday.

“There were great expectations and bitter disappointment,” said Geoff Hadley, the JDF Senior Citizens Association building committee chair. “It really wasn’t what we were expecting.”

The seniors centre executive submitted a federal infrastructure grant request earlier this year for $645,000, half the cost of building a two-storey addition to the existing JDF 55+ Activity Centre.

Hadley said the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure had responded several times with a series of questions and gave every indication the money would be granted.

“We were told the answers we gave were perfect, and that was about a month ago,” he said. “We were told the announcement of some kind might be in July. We are still hopeful.”

Seniors centre members thought their day had arrived when the Prime Minister’s Office announced Stephen Harper would visit West Shore Parks and Recreation on Wednesday, the home of the seniors building. Unfortunately, that turned out to only be the muster point for journalists to join Harper’s entourage on a whirlwind visit to Victoria Shipyards and then Royal Roads University.

The single local infrastructure funding announcement was for a learning commons at Camosun College. The remainder were for 12 other post-secondary institutions, mainly in Greater Vancouver.

Hadley said after six years of working on the seniors centre expansion, he’s learned to be patient, but the facility is bursting at the seams. With 1,200 members, they are starting to turn people away, he said.

“I’ve been personally working on this since June 2003,” Hadley said. “We were ready for good news. We thought the prime minister would make the announcement. We were greatly disappointed.”

Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca Liberal MP Keith Martin said he was also “deeply disappointed” the JDF seniors centre was snubbed during the latest round of funding.

Martin said he’s been met with silence from the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure while lobbying for projects such as the JDF seniors centre, the connector roads near the Spencer Road Interchange in Langford and upgrading E&N tracks for commuter rail.

Delays at the federal level are “hamstringing” local government planning, he said, and making the March 2011 project completion date increasingly onerous.

“The government will only make announcements if a (Conservative) member is available to make the announcement. It’s absurd,” Martin said. “I think the government is in over its head. The impetus is good trying to allocate infrastructure funds. I think they’ve run into trouble trying to execute this.”

editor@goldstreamgazette.com