The road to national economic prosperity can only be travelled if provincial and federal governments pave it with real asphalt, say transportation and construction experts.
Jeff Morrison, executive director of The Road and Infrastructure Program of Canada (TRIP Canada), a special committee of the Ottawa-based Canadian Construction Association (CCA) of which he is director of environment, says that with a funding shortfall of more than $22 billion, Canada's highway network is in great need of a commitment from all levels of government to get it up to speed.
"We've reached a point where the federal government has paid insufficient attention to our national highways for so long that we're starting to see the impacts of that neglect all over the place," says Morrison.
"This at a time when (federal Finance Minister) Ralph Goodale and the federal government keep saying that we need to increase productivity and standards of living. This is one of the best ways to do it because we have neglected our highway system for so long and that's one of the factors to low-productivity growth in this country."
Morrison says there is a strong business argument for investing in the country's roadways. Quoting figures from a recent Statistics Canada study, he says that for every dollar invested in highways, Canadian business sees about a 17-cent return due to shorter delays, increased efficiency and productivity, and fewer accidents.
That's why the CCA is pressing provincial premiers - who gathered in Alberta last week - and the federal government to make a serious commitment to invest in Canada's highways.
Some positive movement is being made, especially at the provincial level. In Ontario, for example, the government has begun to recognize the need to invest in infrastructure, he notes.
The Ontario government recently established a 30-year infrastructure funding program, one of the first of its kind in Canada, targeting core infrastructure projects such as roads, mass transit, wastewater, energy systems and also highways.
Still, there's much to be done in Canada's most populous province, industry observers say. While crews have been busy upgrading roadways in the Golden Horseshoe region of southwestern Ontario, many stretches of highway in that vital economic corridor remain pocked by potholes.
Other problem areas exist around the province.
"If you travel 40 kilometres outside of Ottawa, you're on a little two-lane highway," Morrison says of the Trans-Canada Highway. "Forty kilometres outside the capital and you're on a dangerous two-lane highway. There aren't too many capitals in large industrialized countries that could say the same thing."
Investing in ground transportation infrastructure also opens up areas of the country that are otherwise inaccessible - especially in economically important regions such as northern Alberta.
"The biggest booming area of Canada is northern Alberta. You need a high-quality highway network to transport goods to and from that region. Without it you can build as many oilsands projects as you want, but it's not going to benefit the economy," Morrison says.
Don Brownie couldn't agree more. The board member of the University of Calgary's Van Horne Institute for International Transportation and Regulatory Affairs and a principal with transportation consultants Prolog Canada Inc. says he views the woeful state of Highway 63 connecting Fort McMurray to Edmonton as an impediment to Alberta's future economic growth.
"I think one of the areas is Fort McMurray and the oilsands development, where there really is a need for improved rail and highway access to that city, and that's something where any investment is going to yield huge returns for Albertans."
Brownie adds he recognizes financing large-scale infrastructure projects is a sensitive political issue, but he urges the Alberta government to explore new ways to find funding. He says the Ralph Klein government's July revelation that it is willing to slip back into debt to upgrade the province's transportation and other infrastructure "makes all kinds of sense."
"Borrowing money doesn't always have to be bad," Brownie says. "The public perception is you don't borrow money and you don't get into debt, but there are good ways of getting into debt and bad ways."
He also points to other options for raising funds, such as special bond issues and more emphasis on P3s (public-private partnerships).
The CCA's Morrison agrees Canada has fallen well behind other G-7 nations in the use of public-private partnerships, but also points to the fact that Canadians pay 10 cents-plus in GST on gasoline, none of which is invested back into highway networks.
"And, ironically, there were reports recently that the next federal surplus is going to be probably in the neighbourhood of $10 or $20 billion.
A proportion of that is coming from the additional GST collected on the high cost of gas."
Jack Davidson, president of the B.C. Road Builders and Heavy Construction Association, also favours the feds pumping more of the yield from fuel taxes back into his province's highways.
"I don't want to jump on (the federal government) too hard, because they're doing a lot more than they were, and that's good. But they're only giving back about 30 to 40 per cent of the gas taxes we spend and we've got to get it all back," Davidson says.
He adds he is pleased the B.C. government has made the improvement of provincial highways a priority.
The province has drafted a plan where $10 billion will be spent over 10 years, including $3 billion in the first two years to give it a first push. However, Davidson says more must be done - and fast - to get B.C.'s ground transportation system up to snuff in order to capitalize on the growing trade with Asia.
"We are growing as the gateway to the East, in China, etc., and our ports are always plugged, traffic to and from them is always slow, we have freeways that are always plugged, it's rush hour almost 12 hours a day."
Even organizations normally keen to keep government spending under control say they place great value on upgrading and maintaining Canada's roads and highways.
The Canadian Chamber of Commerce, for example, says infrastructure is a priority for business, both for the fact that the transportation sector is important to Canada's economy in addition to the need for a smooth-running transportation system.
Of particular concern, says Michael Murphy, the chamber's vice-president of policy, are access points linking Canada with its largest trading partner, the U.S.
"Border crossings are hugely important and in great need of upgrading," Murphy says. "The crossing at Windsor, in particular, is in dire need of upgrading if we want to stay competitive."
However, the chamber draws the line on raising taxes to do the job, but rather favours a shift in where the government spends its money."We saw in the last (federal) budget there was a reallocation from lower-priority spending items to higher-priority spending items and the government came up with a figure of $11 billion of reallocation over the next several years," says Murphy. "We think there's more of an opportunity to do that and we say ... infrastructure spending should be a part of that reallocation."
