Public infrastructure is an excellent investment. It provides valuable public services that improve the quality of life in our communities, and also has important short-term and long‑term economic impacts.
Over the short term, public investment in infrastructure provides one of the strongest economic boosts to the economy in terms of stimulating growth and creating jobs. Over the long term, public infrastructure improves life for everyone, increases productivity, reduces costs for business and helps stimulate increased business investment.
Canada’s infrastructure deficit is over $150 billion. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) estimates that municipally-controlled water and wastewater facilities alone need an injection of over $50 billion to renew infrastructure in poor or very poor condition. Local governments also bear much of the additional infrastructure costs for climate change mitigation and adaptation. The 2013 floods cost the Province of Alberta and City of Toronto $3 billion. The annual costs of natural catastrophes are forecast to rise to $5 billion annually by 2020 and to over $20 billion annually in 2050.
With interest rates remaining at historic lows, there is no better time for governments to undertake capital infrastructure investments. Despite higher levels of capital investment, debt servicing costs for local governments now average only 2.5 per cent of total revenues, less than half of what they were between 1990 and 2005. These levels are far below any provincial debt servicing restrictions on municipalities, which are typically set at 20 to 30 per cent of revenues. Municipalities have ample room to borrow to undertake capital investments, particularly if they can do so through low-cost public municipal financing authorities.
Municipalities are responsible for approximately 60 per cent of Canada’s core public infrastructure but collect about 12 cents of every tax dollar. This means federal and provincial governments must also provide direct support to municipal governments for infrastructure investments. The federal government’s 2016 budget justified optimism on this front. Since then, the reality has failed to live up to the promise.
2016 federal budget: a good start
The 2016 federal budget committed the government to $11.9 billion in infrastructure spending over five years, as part of Phase I of its infrastructure program:
- $3.4 billion over three years to upgrade and improve public transit systems;
- $5 billion over five years for investments in water, wastewater and green infrastructure projects;
- $3.4 billion over five years for social infrastructure, including affordable housing, early learning and child care, cultural and recreational infrastructure, and community health care facilities on reserve.
An additional $2.5 billion previously committed to infrastructure was re-allocated in 2016‑17, earmarked for post-secondary institutions and broadband access. This brought the revised 2016‑17 infrastructure total to $14.4 billion.
Budget 2017 indicated that the bulk of this funding would be consumed by 2018‑19, when the Public Transit Infrastructure Fund and the Clean Water and Wastewater Fund expire.
2017 federal budget: worrisome signals
While the 2017 federal budget committed the government to even more long‑term infrastructure spending than a year earlier, there were some troubling indications that the federal government’s commitment to long-term infrastructure funding is waning.
In the 2016 Fall Economic Statement, the federal government announced an additional $81.3 billion in infrastructure spending over 11 years. Budget 2017 provided details of how this funding will be allocated:
- $25.3 billion – almost one-third of the new funding – for transit infrastructure over 11 years.
- $21.9 billion for “green infrastructure,” which includes water and wastewater systems.
- $10.1 billion for trade and transportation infrastructure.
- $21.9 billion for “social infrastructure,” covering a range of projects including early learning/child care spaces, community cultural and recreational facilities, social housing, and support for Indigenous communities.
- $1 billion for “home care infrastructure.”
- $2 billion for rural and northern communities.
The “social” infrastructure plan contains a large funding commitment for affordable housing, including $5 billion over 11 years for a National Housing Fund, $3 billion for federal-provincial-territorial partnerships in housing, over $2 billion for tackling homelessness, $2 billion for Indigenous communities and another $225 million for housing for Indigenous peoples not living on reserves.
However, one major change was the lowering of the federal share of funding for projects undertaken with municipalities to a maximum 40 per cent of total project cost, down from the 50 per cent amount for projects receiving Phase I funding.
2018 federal budget: delay, delay, delay
There were no new infrastructure funds introduced in the 2018 federal budget. Rather, existing funds were reorganized, much of this having the effect of pushing the government’s spending commitments on infrastructure well into the 2020s. Considering how urgently infrastructure repair and maintenance are needed, the inability of the federal government to get money out the door and shovels in the ground is troubling.
2019 federal budget: eyes on the election
In the most recent budget, the federal government provides a one-time $2.2 billion boost to infrastructure funding through the Gas Tax Fund. This new spending is meant to fund “short-term” priorities in municipalities and First Nations communities in a few broad areas such as roads and bridges, community energy systems, and disaster mitigation. The budget also commits $5-$6 billion to high-speed broadband networks, with the goal of having 95 per cent of homes and businesses connected by 2026.
This amount of money is a mere drop in the bucket given the size of the national infrastructure deficit, and given the fact that as of March 2019, the federal government has spent less than 10 per cent of the monies allocated to infrastructure in previous budgets. And unfortunately, we know some of this money will be provided through public-private partnerships funded by the Canada Infrastructure Bank.
Canada Infrastructure Bank
The Canada Infrastructure Bank, designed to “leverage” private sector investment in infrastructure, was initially unveiled deep in the federal Budget Implementation Acttabled in April 2017. Since then the Board has been appointed, staff and executives have been hired, and funding decisions are being made. As of March 2019, the bank has funded one project, the Réseau express métropolitain, a P3 rail project in Montreal.
The federal government will provide $35 billion for the bank, to be invested along with private financing. Budget 2017 indicated that the bank will target “transformative infrastructure projects” with revenue-generating potential, including public transit, trade and transport infrastructure (such as toll roads and bridges), and “green infrastructure projects, including those that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, deliver clean air and safe water systems, and promote renewable power.” The 2017 budget allocated $5 billion to each of these areas.
The bank has been established as an arm’s-length crown corporation, accountable to Parliament through a minister and subject to audits by the Auditor General. However, this would be at a lower standard and with less transparency than the Auditor General has over direct government departmental spending and the Auditor General may not be able to review specific projects to judge whether they provide value for money to the public.
Disturbingly, the Act mandates that the board will have no direct representation from federal, provincial or municipal governments. Equally troubling, the Act stipulates that the bank must keep secret all information relating to proponents, private sector or institutional investors, except in exceptional circumstances.
The bank will also act as a centre of expertise on infrastructure projects for private sector or institutional investors to make significant investments and is empowered to accept unsolicited private-sector bids. In other words, it is likely to become a “bank of privatization” as CUPE has warned.
This new bank is likely to lead to privatization of public transit, highways and bridges, water and wastewater systems, hydro-electric utilities and transmission grids. This privatization, whether through full or partial asset sales, or private development and ownership of new facilities, has many consequences. It will directly affect the employment of CUPE members, result in higher user fees for the public, and is also likely to require higher public payments over the long term, all to pay for the higher returns and profits demanded by private finance.
Having private corporations and investors own public infrastructure is bad public policy for other reasons as well, including lack of transparency and accountability, lack of integration with other public services and infrastructure systems, the overall negative impact on other public infrastructure, the potential environmental impacts and growing corporate power in our society.
Many question the need for an infrastructure bank at all or have argued that the infrastructure bank should rely on public financing as other public investment and development banks do. While it is true that large private sector investors in Canada like pension funds are looking for domestic opportunities to invest in infrastructure projects, it is not clear from a public policy perspective why the federal government should assist them in this way.
P3s cost more, deliver less
CUPE welcomes the government’s elimination of the public-private partnership (P3) screen for large infrastructure projects. We also welcome the closure of PPP Canada. But the establishment of the Canada Infrastructure Bank shows this government is embracing, rather than rejecting, privatization of public infrastructure.
Meanwhile, the negative evidence on P3s keeps piling up: Ontario’s Auditor General reviewed 74 P3s in the province and found they cost on average almost 30 per cent more than publicly financed and operated projects – despite persistent claims they cost less. And in 2018, a study from the Columbia Institute found that British Columbia paid at least $3.7 billion more for 17 P3 projects than it would have through traditional public procurement. In health care, the higher cost of P3s is already leading to cuts to front-line public services in many provinces. P3s don’t save money: they merely hide higher costs and debts by shifting them into future years.
The federal government’s financial commitment to infrastructure renewal over the next decade is impressive. But because of the large infrastructure deficit, it still falls short of what’s needed. The government is hoping to paper over that gap with the help of private sector financing, but that’s not the solution to Canada’s infrastructure deficit. We can’t keep offloading the cost of infrastructure to future generations. Instead of leaving our children with an inflated bill, let’s leave them with publicly-provided clean drinking water and wastewater treatment, efficient transportation systems and a good stock of social infrastructure.
