Front Burner - Are Canadian cities crumbling?

Episode Date: June 21, 2024

Calgarians are still rationing water more than two weeks after a catastrophic pipe break — and the city says they’ve got at least two more weeks to go before it’s fixed.There’s still much we don’t know about why this pipe broke down, but what experts do know is that other Canadian cities should be gearing up for similar crises. Huge amounts of their infrastructure — from roads to subway cars to schools and community centres — hasn’t been properly maintained for decades, and it’s nearing the end of its life span.Matti Siemiatycki, the Director of the Infrastructure Institute at the University of Toronto.For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Jamie Poisson. So on Wednesday, Calgary Mayor Joy T. Gondak had some good news to deliver. I'm happy to report as well that the two pieces of pipe that we've been waiting on from San Diego arrived last night. That means that the catastrophic water main break that happened on June 5th might be fixed as soon as two weeks from now instead of four. But meanwhile, the city remains under a state of emergency and Calgarians are still

under water restrictions. All outdoor watering has been banned. People are being urged to flush the toilet less, take fewer showers and do less laundry and dishes. At one point, some residents closer to the break had to rely on water wagons being brought in or porta potties at school. Having no bathrooms, having to go outside and use those porta-potties over there. Have you managed to do that? I'm holding it in. I'm not risking it. All this is happening as Calgary counts down to the Stampede, which kicks off July 4th. The 10-day event usually brings in over a million people to the city.

And apparently visitors to the Stampede are already being asked, take your laundry home, don't do it in Calgary. Let's be clear here, this is a short-term problem. There are 28 First Nations across Canada that remain under long-term boil water advisories. Some of them have been in place for decades. But in a major Canadian city, an event like this at this scale doesn't usually happen, at least not yet. Experts say that Canadian cities are full of all kinds of critical infrastructure that hasn't been maintained and that's reaching the end of its life. So is

Calgary the canary in the coal mine? That's what I'm going to talk about today with Matty Simiaticki. He's the director of the Infrastructure Institute at the University of Toronto. And wait, please don't press pause yet. I know the word infrastructure is a real party killer, but I want you to stick with me here because what we're talking about are the buses that you take to work, the roads you drive on, your local kids' school. Really the basic building blocks of our cities and our quality of life. So let's get into it. Maddie, hey, thanks so much for coming on to the podcast.

It's great to have you here to talk about infrastructure. Hi, Jamie. Thanks for having me. So first, are you surprised by the Calgary water main break, by the scale of the problems it is causing, by how hard it has been to fix? I'm surprised by the scale, and yet I'm not surprised that we're having these type of incidents. The scale is profound. To have a major city of Calgary's size having issues with access to drinking water is major.

And to learn how much of the city was reliant on one pipe is so significant and so profound. Mayor Jyoti Gondek has declared a local state of emergency in relation to the catastrophic water main break. Repairs on that water main that services 60% of the city are now expected to last three to five weeks. And yet when we zoom out from this immediate instance, the issues with infrastructure in many ways are the story of Canada right now. We are really struggling. Our Indigenous communities have faced issues around clean water access and safe housing for a long time. And it's also now in many of our other communities, we've had all sorts of instances where people are seeing the consequences of infrastructure that is

degrading, that's starting to wear down, and that now the consequences are coming due as things break. And you have to do maintenance in an emergency way rather than in a more preventative manner. Our experts say this is the most dramatic and traumatic break of the feeder main they have ever seen. This pipe is only at the halfway point in its life cycle. From all accounts, this should not have happened, but it did. So let's spend some time then today talking about how this is indicative of the story of Canada and you're talking about aging infrastructure. And I saw this National Research Council report from 2019 that found that 30% of Canada's water and wastewater infrastructure was at or beyond

service life. And there was a similar one from StatsCan that said in 2020, one in five kilometers of water, sewer and stormwater pipes were reaching the end of their useful life. I mean, this sounds alarming to me. How alarmed should we be? We need to have plans in place, and then we need to have consistent long-term investment. Much of the infrastructure in Canada was built in what's often referred to as the golden era. And this was in the 1960s and 70s. The population was growing. There was a modicum of prosperity, and we were investing in infrastructure. We were investing in all sorts of infrastructure. Enter now a system that has given an added dimension to the word go, Go Transit. The simultaneous evolution of the highway and the automobile

spelled traffic congestion in urban areas, particularly during rush hours. New communities were being built, which along with them came underground infrastructure like stores and water. We were also investing in our social infrastructure and in our community spaces. So there's a lot of centennial arenas and centennial recreation centers around the country from the 60s. And then we kept building into the 70s. In Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, an imaginative concept for a practical, delightful oasis in the center of town. A civic square built around the city hall. A first step in a comprehensive plan to revitalize the aging heart of the town.

We pulled back in the 80s and 90s, mainly for financial reasons and population perhaps wasn't growing as fast. And so you started to see the impacts. We haven't been able to keep pace with the infrastructure that ages. As infrastructure ages, it becomes more brittle. It becomes more prone to breakages. Infrastructure has a natural lifespan and it does have to be maintained over time or else it will degrade. And you're seeing it in all asset classes. You're seeing it in our roads and our bridges. You're seeing it in our water and waste water systems. You're seeing it in our social infrastructure, where the schools have tens of billions of dollars in financial backlogs in terms of maintenance.

The repairs needed at schools in Ontario can range from a ceiling that's about to spring a leak, bricks that may be crumbling, to an electrical panel that needs replacement. Add it up and it amounts to $16.8 billion in repair backlogs across the province. We just haven't kept pace with the degree of investment that's needed. Much of the infrastructure in Canada is operated by and owned by the municipalities. Over 60% of it is municipally owned and operated, but they collect only 10% of the revenue. So they're struggling to figure out how to pay for all of the infrastructure that needs to be kept in a state of good repair. You know, on that note, I don't want to make this conversation too Toronto-centric, but it is the biggest city in the country. And I do think it is a very good example of these issues.

This is sometimes referred to as a world-class city, but everywhere I go, and I imagine it's the same for you, right? I hear people talking about how the city is crumbling, how it's like falling apart. And even the mayor, Olivia Chow, said the same thing last month at a press conference. She was talking about members of her staff getting stuck underground on yet another subway stoppage, that a whole bunch of city assets, stuff like roads and parks and libraries are falling apart, literally, in front of our eyes. Four out of ten of the city infrastructure are categorized as poor or very poor in terms of its performances. That means they're falling apart, literally, in front of our eyes and require replacement so they could operate.

And the longer we wait to fix it, the more it will cost. And talking about shortfalls, she referred to this report that said Toronto is short $26 billion that it will need to maintain its infrastructure over the next decade. And just tell me a little bit more like how it got this bad in Canada's biggest city? I think what you're seeing is that people are noticing it in their day-to-day lives, the impact of infrastructure wearing down. We were known as the city that works. We were known as a city that built infrastructure, invested, and then kept it in a state of good repair and the city was clean. That was the brand

of the city of Toronto. And what you've seen over time is that the infrastructure has degraded. We have not kept a pace with the investment that's needed. And it's coming to a head because people are now seeing it in their day-to-day lives. It came to a head in our parks and in our key indies when the park washrooms and the water fountains weren't open. This seems like it might be small and local, but it starts to just chip away at your understanding of what a city can be. Then people started to notice it in their roads,

which are increasingly in a poor state of repair. And for a while, we had chunks of concrete, for example, falling off the side of highways off the Gardner Expressway, which is an absolute safety hazard. For the first time, the city publicly admitted parts of the Gardiner are in poor condition, that the deck is close to becoming unusable. Other problems were also kept quiet. As concrete kept falling, the city rushed to reassure everyone that the road was safe. The structure is safe. The structure is sound. Those words repeated over and over again, part of a carefully crafted media strategy. So people were noticing

those types of instances. Then on our public transportation system, we had a derailment of the Scarborough LRT, which could have been catastrophic, which fortunately it wasn't. Dozens have come out for a symbolic funeral for the Scarborough LRT. As you can see, many are here dressed in black, some bringing flowers and holding candles as well. While also here, they're also calling for a fast track solution for Scarborough transit commuters. Scarborough can no longer wait for a service that is not improved. Scarborough can no longer wait for service that does not represent the people and the standard of living that we are trying to create in this era for one another. It just highlighted again, and there are question

marks in terms of reports about what degree to which that had to do with poor maintenance. And then transit riders are now experiencing go slow zones, or they hadn't been over the last number of months because the tracks hadn't been in a state of repair where the trains could go faster over them. So people are starting to see this in every facet of their life. And it's feeding into this idea that it seems that everything is broken and also that we can't solve even the most immediate basic problems in our lives. We become used to the fact that you flip the switch and the lights turn on. You open the tap and clean water comes out. You go to the train station and the trains run and it will be safe for

you. And we're starting to see that this is degrading, that this quality of life that is the underpinning of a livable city and an economy that functions is really starting to break down and people are noticing it and they're becoming increasingly frustrated. lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income? That's not a typo,

50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Cups. Outside Toronto, are there any other Canadian cities that spring to mind for you that are dealing with big problems here in their infrastructure? I know you said it's all across the country, but is it really acute anywhere else? It absolutely has been acute and it is acute right across the country. Montreal, for example, is a city

that has really grappled with its own infrastructure backlogs over the years. Montreal had a tunnel, part of a tunnel collapse in the 2010s and now has been investing in its infrastructure to the point where there's a lot of frustration about the construction of maintenance. Traffic woes for Montreal area motorists as a major link between the island and its south shore, the Lafontaine Tunnel, is now facing years of lane closures for maintenance work. On Monday, the first day

of the partial shutdown, many say it wasn't so bad traveling to Montreal, but they're anxious for the days to come. And that's another dynamic that's at play, that on the one hand, people want infrastructure to work and they want it to be well maintained and clean. And yet the maintenance is often hugely frustrating. It's frustrating in terms of the gridlock it entails. Going and doing maintenance on an asset that's underground, like a sewer main, is really disruptive. And it does take lanes of traffic out of commission. We've also seen issues in Ottawa, for example,

which had its own train derailment on its LRT, and the Transportation Safety Board ascribed that in some parts to a maintenance issue as well. Ottawa's LRT system has been out of service now for nearly seven weeks. After that LRT car derailed at Tremblay Station, now a full report from the TSB says the bolts connected to the gearbox were left loose. The train was released and derailed five days later. released and derailed five days later. I just want to dig into the political problem a little bit more because, you know, as you've mentioned, maintaining this stuff is not glamorous. Like, everybody claps when you put in a new train or a new ring road, right? But, like, they're not

clapping when you're putting in the grunt work to maintain it. Actually, they're probably very annoyed that you're doing that because it's,'s like disrupting their lives or digging up the streets in front of their homes or whatnot, you know, delaying or rerouting their public transit routes. So how do you deal with that political reality that like it is usually easier for government leaders to just kick the can down the line to their successor or to focus on delivering a shiny new thing. The politics of infrastructure are so perverse. This idea that it is glamorous and exciting to be building new. In fact, it's visionary. You are seen as a leader, someone who's pushing the boundaries to make society better. And yet, as soon as the ribbon is cut, everyone moves on to the next shiny thing.

And the infrastructure that's there becomes yesterday's news. And it functions, and it functions well for a while. And it starts to then degrade, as anything does. And the politics just don't lend themselves to investing in operations and maintenance. just don't lend themselves to investing in operations and maintenance. It really, the ball keeps bouncing and people want to catch up to it and be on to the new thing. The other point of the perversity of infrastructure is how to pay for it. We often turn the tap on and off, but infrastructure doesn't get planned in a year and its lifespan

isn't an election cycle. It is, you are making investments for generations, for decades, and in some cases for centuries. And you need a plan, not just for the ribbon cutting and shortly thereafter, but for its entire lifespan after the people who planned it, who invested in it and who approved it

have now moved on. So you need these systems that can endure over a long period of time and the expertise to be able to do it. And the labor force, which we've also struggled with in the current moment, we're struggling not just with an issue around money and inflation, but also with the people who have the actual skills and capacity to go in and do this really hard and technical work. really hard and technical work. So coming back to the money thing, I mentioned Toronto's maintenance budget shortfall,

but it's not alone. Vancouver has a $500 million annual gap in infrastructure funding. Other cities are dealing with similar issues. So here's the big question, like, what do we do about this? Who's going to pay for it? Do the feds step in, the provinces? Do cities just have to tax their citizens more?

We're in an all-hands-on-deck situation, and we're at a breaking point. We're at really this moment of inflection where we can continue to try to keep taxes at the rates that they are to keep to avoid paying user fees on many of our big pieces of infrastructure like roads. Canada does not tend to charge user fees for its roads. You're talking about like tolls or something. Tolls, congestion charges, as some of our peers do. And so the infrastructure is at the political behest, and it tends to fall to the bottom of the agenda. What we've seen over time is that the municipalities just are not going to be able to carry this on their own.

The scale is too great, and the amount of infrastructure they have to invest in is too large. So it's going to require the provinces and the federal government to come to the table and create a long-term investment strategy. Do you think that that appetite exists right now? Because on the one hand, people are looking at their cities and looking at them crumbling. And on the other hand, people are really struggling, right? Like there's record numbers of Canadians reportedly using food banks, right? And so, you know, there's a push for government austerity. And so do you think that that appetite exists right now for those investments

to be made, especially if it might result in higher taxes or user fees. Infrastructure has been so prone to cycles of political cycles and also economic and financial cycles. And it's been one of the places where governments tend to cut in moments where either their cash drop or in moments where their constituents are feeling the financial pinch. And we are definitely in an affordability crisis.

And the idea of trying to raise additional revenue is really both politically challenging and also socially challenging. People are really struggling right now. And yet infrastructure is an area where you pay for it in one way or another. infrastructure is an area where you pay for it in one way or another. You pay for it in terms of money and invest in the quality, or you pay in terms of time and lost time if it doesn't work, or you pay in terms of safety if there's risks that it's going to break and you're going to have real safety hazards, or you pay for it in terms of a loss of quality of life if it's not there. And we're at a moment now where the bill is coming due, and we're just deciding which way we're going to pay for it, whether it's going to be in terms of

money and being proactive, or whether it's going to be in a loss of our economic productivity, quality of life, potential safety risks, which we have seen in very real instances in this country in the last little while. If you had to bet which way it's going, which way do you think it's going? I know which way I'd like it to go. Yeah, I would imagine. I'd like us to continue to invest and I'd like to invest

because I see infrastructure as an investment in our common wealth. The public infrastructure is all of our shared wealth and it's an investment in our future. It's infrastructure is the building block. Infrastructure is an enabler, and it's an enabler of opportunity. And especially when now we are in a moment of considerable population growth. This is what we did in the 50s and in the 60s and 70s. We invested heavily in the infrastructure with the promise that it would enable us to harness

all of that growth and that potential. And we're actually in another one of those moments where we are growing very quickly. And there is an opportunity to take that growth and turn it into community growth and in terms of productivity and prosperity growth. So I would like us to invest, but you do see the clouds on the horizon as well. You see them in terms of people feeling strapped, people feeling frustrated, and also a sense that even if there was more money, we're not necessarily sure if the projects can be delivered well. A narrative that's also alongside the need to invest in infrastructure is that these projects are consistently late and

over budget and hugely disruptive. So people, I think, it starts to chip away at our confidence that our governments, our elected officials, and also then our civil servants and the companies that they hire and work with are actually going to be able to deliver on this. So I think this whole sector is so out of sight, out of mind until something breaks. And I think we're now at the breaking point where people are noticing that it's not working. And we're going to be having this debate, this dialogue about which direction we go. Are we going to continue to invest?

Or are we going to pull back and see the consequences? All right. Lots to think about here on things that maybe, you know, we don't spend a ton of time thinking and talking about. So Matty, I want to thank you so much for coming by and doing this with us. Thanks, Jamie. All right, that is all for today. Front Burner was produced this week by Joytha Sengupta, Ali Janes, Matt Mews, Derek Vanderwyk, and Julia Israel. Sound design was

by Matt Cameron, Marco Luciano, and Sam McNulty. Music is by Joseph Chavison. Our senior producer is Elaine Chao. Our executive producer is Nick McCabe-Locos, and I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening, and we'll talk to cbc.ca slash podcasts.