Infrastructure Report Card Due Today
Tuesday, September 11, 2012 @ 3:55 AM
Prince George, B.C.- Later this morning the Federation of Canadian Municipalities will release its Infrastructure Report Card, it is the first attempt in Canada to comparatively rate municipal infrastructure such as roads and water systems.
“In 2014, $2 billion in federal funding for municipal infrastructure will run out,” said FCM President Karen Leibovici. “The new long-term federal plan must be designed to help communities like Prince George meet challenges while creating jobs, building a strong economy, and maintaining a high quality of life for all Canadians.”
Last week, Prince George City Councillor Garth Frizzell joined more than 100 municipal leaders from across Canada for the FCM’s national Board of Directors meeting in Laval, Quebec. The Board discussed how they can work together to support FCM’s “Target 2014” campaign for a new federal long-term infrastructure plan. “Like municipalities throughout Canada, we know that Prince George has underfunded infrastructure for decades.” said Frizzell, “Even now we can only budget a fraction of the costs each year that we require to keep our roads, water and sewer maintained.”
It has recently been estimated that the infrastructure deficit in Canadian cities is in the tens of billions of dollars.
Comments
Prince George’s infrastructure deficit will be in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
Frizzell is right when he states that we have been underfunding infrastructure for years, however he fails to mention that we chose to spend our money (and borrowed money) on projects that we could have done without.
We created this problem along with other Municipalities, and now we want the Federal Government to bail us out. No doubt they will give us some help, but in the end we will have to stop spending money on stupid projects.
The building of the WIDC at a time when our infrastructure is crumbling is a prime example of how tax dollars are not being applied intelligently.
To hell with infrastructure lets buil;d an empire.
Cheers
I bet they are grading on a curve:)
“It has recently been estimated that the infrastructure deficit in Canadian cities is in the tens of billions of dollars.”
tens? … how about 100’s and more like trillions?
Actually there is a considerable difference between
1. infrastructure deficit, and
2. infrastructure maintenance deficit.
I suspect it is only the second one being discussed.
Even then that will be in the hundreds of billion.
“To hell with infrastructure lets build an empire” … and watch it crumble …..
We should have learned from history that failing to feed the empires we have built will cause them to crumble … one after another …. ;-
Don’t you think that Steven Harper could make the fcuel cheaper for Canadians thus help the Canadian people and prevent them from being Gouged by wealthy oil companies. Living from pay check to pay check justso i can gas up my automobile sure makes life in Prince George dificult.
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