Canada is in an infrastructure spending boom. Success is about smarter, digital projects, which the Canada Infrastructure Bank can fund.
Complaining about infrastructure is almost as Canadian as complaining about the weather. In fact, the two are linked: Canada’s harsh winters and extreme temperature fluctuations take a toll on the country’s roads, vehicles and other infrastructure.
But it’s more than that. Everyone seems to have a story about infrastructure gone wrong. Cost overruns. Late delivery. Suboptimal results. Politics that trumps evidence.And yet, Canada is experiencing an infrastructure spending revival on a scale not seen since the 1950s and 1960s, when modern Canada – our universities and colleges, our hospitals, our highways – was built.
This is an excerpt from the article Making the most of Canada’s infrastructure revival by Drew Fagan, January 10, 2019, Policy Options Politique, Institute for Research on Public Policy (IRPP). The article is also available in French.
The article is a précis of Fagan’s Canada’s Infrastructure Revival: Let’s Get the Biggest Bang for Our Buck published on Public Policy Forum.
Drew Fagan is a Professor of Public Policy at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, University of Toronto, and a member of the UTTRI Advisory Board.