Watching local governments struggle with their budgets is a lot like watching kids trudge through a field of Regina clay after a two-day rain …their boots weigh a ton and they don’t get very far very fast.
At the heart of these municipal struggles is infrastructure. Basically, how do we keep it up and still deal with all the other non-infrastructure issues.
Well, a new report from StatsCan tries to put a number on the problem. And it is worse here in places like Saskatchewan than elsewhere.
This report looks at the state of Canada’s infrastructure at the end of 2022. And it shows a deficit of $294 billion. In other words, almost $300 billion is needed to maintain the existing infrastructure or get it back into serviceable condition. In that year, we spent roughly $30 billion – about 10-percent of what is needed – on that work.
On a per capita basis, rural communities have more road assets than more densely populated regions so the issue is more acute here…18-percent of the population but 32-percent of the maintenance needed.
