The last of the Yukon's share in the federal Strategic Highway Infrastructure Program (SHIP) will be spent on fixing up the Takhini River Bridge along the Alaska Highway west of Whitehorse.

'We've used up the entirety,' Yukon MP Larry Bagnell said this morning.

Bagnell and territorial Economic Development Minister Jim Kenyon made the announcement about the last of the SHIP funding this morning at the Elijah Smith Building on Main Street.

Kenyon was representing Public Works Minister Glenn Hart, who is ill.

The work will see $1.3 million spent on replacing the bridge deck to increase its load capacity and seismic resistance. The federal government and territory will each put $650,000 into the project, which will be tendered next month.

Just how many jobs will come from the project will depend on the plans of the contractors bidding on the work, Kenyon said.

Under the program signed in 2002, the territory and Ottawa funded $8.8 million for transportation projects in the Yukon. In addition to plans for the Takhini River Bridge this summer, the fund was spent on work for other portions of the Alaska Highway and the Johnson's Crossing bridge.

Bagnell and Kenyon pointed to the importance of the Takhini River Bridge as part of the territory's transportation system.

'The Takhini River Bridge is an important connection in movement of people and goods along the Alaska Highway corridor,' Kenyon said.

Bagnell said the highway is the only major route from Alaska to the southern U.S., and more than 80 per cent of the goods coming into the Yukon are transported along the route.

The funding announcement comes as the federal Liberal government is faced with the potential of an early election if the Conservatives and Bloc Quebecois defeat the federal budget in the House of Commons.

Regardless, the territory's Liberal MP said the funding for the bridge is at a point where it's guaranteed.

'This is all signed, sealed and delivered,' he said.

Other federal funding announcements made recently throughout the country have been criticized as efforts by the federal government to win votes.

'As you know, that's certainly not an issue in the Yukon because I've been fighting for money for the last four years,' he said.

There's been a number of such announcements made during his time in office, said the second-term MP.

'This is just a continuing progression of those,' he said.

Although the funding for the territory under the SHIP program has been spent, Bagnell pointed to a number of other programs such as the Municipal Rural Infrastructure Fund (MRIF) and the strategic infrastructure fund which could be accessed for projects.

Work on the bridge will be underway this summer. The last major work on the structure was in 1997, when major deck patching was done.

In 1991, the bridge was strengthened with extra thickness of steel to the trusses. It was built in 1968.