In October 2003, Canada West Foundation released A Capital Question: Infrastructure in Western Canada's Big Six (Vander Ploeg 2003). This in-depth analysis of the infrastructure needs facing western Canada's six big cities reinforced the fact that urban infrastructure has become a serious issue. In the 2003 fiscal year, for example, the six big western Canadian cities (Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Saskatoon, Regina, and Winnipeg) are reporting a combined $564 million infrastructure deficit - the annual shortfall in funds required for critical infrastructure investments. This is a conservative estimate. Further, most of the cities are reporting that these infrastructure deficits could rise substantially in the future.
In addition, estimates of the total municipal infrastructure debt in Canada - the backlog of required maintenance and replacement of existing infrastructure assets - could total almost $60 billion (Canadian Society of Civil Engineering 2002). The total infrastructure debt for all governments in Canada could be as high as $125 to $130 billion (FCM 1999; Mirza 2003). If corrective action is not taken to address the issue, some analysts contend that the required funds for the entire country's public infrastructure could reach as high as $400 billion by 2015-2020 (Comeau 2001; Mirza 2003).
There is almost universal consensus within the policy community that Canada, like other western industrialized countries, does indeed have an infrastructure debt. To be sure, there are widely diverging opinions on how large this debt might be. The earlier Canada West study attempted to set some boundaries for the magnitude of infrastructure deficits and debt by analyzing over forty years of public capital investment in Canada. The result of this analysis showed that public capital investment across all government sectors has fallen dramatically, and the estimates above are not completely without warrant.
The potential costs of failing to address the issue include higher operating costs for government and business, negative impacts on the environment, threats to public health and safety as well as other social costs, lost economic potential and productivity, and most important, the prospect of even higher capital costs in the future (Vander Ploeg 2003). Clearly, the issue is one that needs to be addressed. Given the potential magnitude of the problem and the costs of failing to act, this is no time to be timid.