Building a better city

By Cathy Gulli - Monday, November 28, 2011 at 9:40 AM - 0 Comments

Photograph by Roger Lemoyne; ENVAC

Deep beneath the streets of Montreal’s entertainment district, running alongside the usual water, sewage and gas pipes that lie underground in every community across the country, something entirely unique is buried: 1.5 km of carbon steel tubes that will eventually funnel the neighbourhood’s garbage, recycling and organic waste into a massive subterranean container with a capacity of up to 10 tonnes. The trash will be sucked through the pipes and into the container by four fans with a combined power of 440 kilowatts, and later trucked to a landfill or another destination.

Once up and running in 2014, the Envac system will be Canada’s first municipal automated vacuum waste collection program—a stark contrast to the weekly curbside pickup most people are used to, which is labour-intensive and inefficient. “Today we are collecting waste like we did hundreds of years ago,” says Sean Monclús of Envac, who has been working with the city of Montreal to set up the system, which is costing $8.2 million. That makes no sense, he says: “If we have waste water underground, why not the waste?”

Perhaps most surprising about the implementation of this innovative program is the fact that it’s being done in Quebec, which has become the poster child for aging infrastructure, and the perils of failing to manage municipal services in a progressive way. In Laval in 2006, five people were killed, including a pregnant woman, when the neglected Concorde overpass crashed onto cars below. Parts of the Champlain Bridge corridor, which crosses the St. Lawrence, have been deemed “mediocre to deficient,” according to an annual inspection obtained by the Montreal Gazette. And in July, a 25-tonne concrete beam collapsed from Montreal’s Ville Marie tunnel onto an expressway travelled by 100,000 vehicles every weekday (no one was hurt). “But it’s not just a Montreal problem,” said Mayor Gérald Tremblay then. “When I talk to my colleagues in other big Canadian cities it’s the same issue.”

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Building better health care

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, November 24, 2011 at 1:58 PM - 0 Comments

Paul Dewar calls for the inclusion of medical facilities in a national infrastructure fund.

“Mr. Harper excluded health care investments from the Economic Action Plan and ended federal support for medical equipment,” said Dewar. “It’s time for the federal government to invest in renewing our hospitals, community clinics and medical equipment.”

That will presumably be up for discussion at what seems an increasingly busy debate schedule for NDP leadership contenders. After Mr. Dewar’s called for more than the six debates scheduled by the party, at least two other forums have been announced: one in Sudbury and another in Cambridge.

Not as advertised

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, November 14, 2011 at 9:34 AM - 0 Comments

The Harper government’s ability to announce impressive-sounding numbers apparently exceeds its ability to use those impressive-sounding numbers.

The Green Infrastructure fund provides a good illustration of funds getting backlogged despite Canadians being told they would get it. The fund was announced in the 2009 budget as an initiative that would support projects such as sustainable energy.  It was supposed to push $200 million out the door every year for five years. In two years though, it has spent $50 million. 

By the end of this year, the program is expected to use $104 million, not the $600 million planned, according to the government’s books. In an email, a spokeswoman for Infrastructure said it is “normal for there to be smaller expenditures in the early years” of larger-scale projects. She didn’t respond to a follow-up, however, asking why the forecasting doesn’t reflect that. 

Paul Dewar goes urban

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, October 25, 2011 at 11:30 AM - 1 Comment

The NDP leadership candidate has announced the broad points of his urban agenda.

Dewar committed to ensuring a seat at the table for municipalities in federal-provincial/territorial negotiations dealing with their interests. He also committed to guaranteeing an additional cent of the existing gas tax to provide municipalities with stable, long-term infrastructure funding.

The federal government currently transfers $2 billion in gas tax revenues to municipalities. An additional cent of the gas tax would equal, by the Dewar campaign’s estimate, another $500 million. But the gas tax promise was included in the last NDP election platform, so this might not differentiate Mr. Dewar in any particular way.

Do something

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, September 29, 2011 at 12:33 PM - 14 Comments

The House will spend today debating the following NDP motion.

That, in the opinion of this House, the government should: (a) take immediate action to promote job creation and address the persistently high unemployment rate among Canadian workers, particularly high among young Canadians, in the context of the International Monetary Fund prediction of yet higher unemployment rates in the future unless swift action is taken; (b) take immediate action to ensure all Canadians can rely on a stable and guaranteed pension as they plan their retirement in a period of record household debt and declining stock markets; (c) take immediate action to fix the crumbling infrastructure essential to our economy and the security of Canadians; and (d) maintain the full public sector contribution to the Canadian economy so as to take advantage of low interest rates, undertake strategic public investments, increase Canada’s competitiveness, avert another serious recession and create jobs in Canada.

Tony Clement will take your questions, eventually

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, September 28, 2011 at 1:35 PM - 7 Comments

The President of the Treasury Board says, despite his refusal to do so each afternoon, he’s happy to answer opposition questions about the G8 Legacy Fund.

“We have arranged for myself and others including [Foreign Affairs Minister John] Baird, who had his responsibilities in the program, [Infrastructure] Minister [Denis] LeBel and others to appear before the public accounts committee in the weeks ahead, where parliamentarians will have a full right to ask any additional questions they may have ,” Mr. Clement told reporters Wednesday after the Conservative Party’s weekly caucus meeting.

‘This is totally unacceptable’

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, September 26, 2011 at 8:45 AM - 4 Comments

The NDP turns up new emails related to the G8 Legacy Fund.

On June 22, Infrastructure Canada official Naomi Hirshberg emailed Huntsville officials to inform them that the cheques would be delayed six to eight weeks so that Carol Beal, an assistant deputy minister, could look into the payments. “The ADM of program operations has asked that Infrastructure Canada withhold all claims for review,” she wrote.

Huntsville Mayor Claude Doughty forwarded the email to Clement. “This is totally unacceptable,” he wrote. “I am sure you agree.”

Clement responded: “I agree. I’m working on it.”

Do unto others

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 at 2:52 PM - 3 Comments

Apparently invoking the sponsorship scandal as a comparison, the Liberals are pressing the Conservatives to allow a committee investigation into the G8 Legacy Fund to proceed. Despite holding a majority of seats at the time, Liberal members did allow the public accounts committee to investigate Adscam in 2004: 47 meetings were held over a period of four months and 44 witnesses testified. Alas, the Liberal members brought a halt to the proceedings in May of that year, shortly before an election was called. This greatly disappointed a young idealist by the name of Jason Kenney.

The Liberals “used their hammer to shut down the only inquiry in town,” said Kenney. ”The truth is that this represents a coverup,” said Kenney. “This represents a clear effort by the prime minister to stop difficult questions from being asked days before an election about a huge Liberal scandal involving the theft of millions of tax dollars.”

Montreal is falling down

By Philippe Gohier - Tuesday, August 23, 2011 at 12:05 PM - 9 Comments

Photo by Roger Lemoyne

When a grapefruit-sized chunk of concrete smashed through the windshield of a 29-year-old man’s car in Montreal last Thursday, city officials quickly scrambled to the scene. Like most Montrealers, they assumed the worst—that it was yet another in a series of mishaps involving the city’s crumbling infrastructure. Their worries turned out to be misplaced. Within a few hours, police had eliminated the possibility that the object was once a part of the overpass above busy Papineau Avenue and were instead investigating whether someone had thrown it. “I want to reassure the people of Montreal: the rock that caused this incident has nothing to do with the structure,” Montreal Mayor Gérald Tremblay told reporters at the scene, deftly avoiding the very word “concrete.” “Vehicles can pass in total safety.” Still, it’s hard to blame even the most paranoid residents for assuming the contrary. It’s raining concrete in Montreal, it seems, and the situation has people on edge.

The most recent incident occurred in late July, when a 15-m long, 25-tonne chunk of concrete fell onto the busy Ville-Marie expressway in the city’s downtown core. Miraculously, no one was injured. (Transport Québec estimates 100,000 vehicles travel along the expressway daily.) Montrealers were no doubt shocked by the accident but, at this point, it may be a stretch to say they were surprised.

The accident was, after all, a grim reminder of a similar collapse in nearby Laval in 2006. Five people died and six more were seriously injured when the de la Concorde overpass came tumbling down onto cars travelling below. And the de la Concorde collapse was itself reminiscent of an incident in which eight heavy concrete beams fell from the Souvenir Boulevard overpass in Laval in 2000, killing one and injuring two others.

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Mind the infrastructure gap

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, July 27, 2011 at 2:26 PM - 10 Comments

Daryl Copeland argues the federal government’s priorities have left little room to deal with national infrastructure needs.

At a time of robust economic growth, Canada’s federal government cut personal and corporate taxes, and reduced the GST by a few percentage points. These actions eliminated several tens of billions of dollars per year in revenue, and, with that, the government’s capacity to raise and retain funds that could later be deployed in support of the public interest. At the same time, the government dramatically increased spending on the armed forces, accumulated the large ancillary expenses associated with going to war in Afghanistan, and presided over the unprecedented militarization of Canadian society.

Meanwhile, Postmedia finds that the $3.1 billion spent to upgrade water treatment plants in recent years may not bring such infrastructure up to new federal standards—standards that may require another $20 billion in upgrades. Municipalities put the total infrastructure deficit at $123 billion.

For your own good (II)

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, July 13, 2011 at 3:44 PM - 0 Comments

The government has decided to release the Champlain Bridge report, but denies this constitutes a change in position.

“I think that they will be released, actually,” Sara MacIntyre, a spokeswoman for Prime Minister Stephen Harper, told The Canadian Press on Wednesday. ”I think that those reports will be out shortly.”

A spokeswoman for Lebel added that a statement from his office would be out Wednesday afternoon. She rejected the suggestion that the government had a change of heart. ”It’s just a question of timing,” Vanessa Schneider said. ”We received the report, I think, in the department just before the election, and as you know, Minister Lebel was appointed in late May, so it’s just a question of going through all our processes.”

Connoisseurs of the subject matter can read the report here.

For your own good

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, July 13, 2011 at 11:13 AM - 16 Comments

Transport Minister Denis Lebel explains why the general public is not allowed to see a report on the condition of Montreal’s Champlain Bridge.

“When you release information into the public that is handled by people who are not exactly connaisseurs of the subject matter, that can create worries that I do not want to create,” Lebel said. ”Above all, I do not want people to try politicizing this issue and to work against the public interest. This isn’t the time to be starting something that would create insecurity in the public. And I’m not saying there are things in the report that would create insecurity; I’m simply saying that we treat very thoroughly everything in such reports to allow for smooth and secure transport.”

Policy alert

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, April 28, 2011 at 5:19 PM - 6 Comments

The Federation of Canadian Municipalities has survey answers from three parties.

The FCM also surveys platform promises here.

'I must respect the Act that governs my work'

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, April 14, 2011 at 11:55 AM - 119 Comments

The Auditor General has officially replied to Jack Layton’s letter of Tuesday evening.

The Auditor General Act outlines our reporting responsibility and specifically addresses the situation of Parliament not sitting. Subsection 7(5) provides for the submission of our report to the Speaker of the House. When the House is not sitting, it requires the Speaker to table the report on any of the first 15 days on which the House is sitting after the Speaker receives it.

How many people does it take to release a report?

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, April 13, 2011 at 4:12 PM - 23 Comments

The Speaker seemed yesterday to say it was up to the four party leaders and the Auditor General to discuss the release of a report into G8-related spending. On that note, Jack Layton wrote last night to the other party leaders and the Auditor General to request a meeting.

The official Liberal response today—with an additional comment on a vote at committee by the NDP’s David Christopherson—is as follows. Continue…

'Take a moment to work together and get results for Canadians'

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, April 12, 2011 at 6:37 PM - 7 Comments

Jack Layton has penned a letter to the other party leaders and Auditor General Sheila Fraser seeking a Thursday meeting to discuss the release of the AG’s final report on G8 funding.

The Hill Times article to which he refers is here.

"This was a bit of a token of saying, 'Thank you.'"

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, April 12, 2011 at 10:11 AM - 12 Comments

The Globe surveys the G8′s “legacy” in Muskoka.

The University of Waterloo’s environmental research centre, completed 11 months ago, remains deserted and without signage. The echoing hallways of a summit centre are largely bare save for pieces of community art, while a brand-new seniors centre, banquet hall and drop-in daycare were empty on Monday afternoon.

The G8 legacy fund

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, April 11, 2011 at 11:54 AM - 95 Comments

The Canadian Press gets a look at a chapter in the draft report of the Auditor General’s investigation into G8 funding.

The draft reveals that a local “G8 summit liaison and implementation team” — Industry Minister Tony Clement, the mayor of Huntsville, and the general manager of Deerhurst Resort which hosted the summit — chose the 32 projects that received funding. It says there was no apparent regard for the needs of the summit or the conditions laid down by the government…

The draft report says that in November 2009, the government tabled supplementary spending estimates which requested $83 million for a Border Infrastructure Fund aimed at reducing congestion at border crossings. But the government did not reveal that it intended to devote $50 million of that money to a G8 legacy fund, even though Huntsville is nowhere near the Canada-U.S. border.

When Michael Ignatieff demanded last week that the final report be dismissed, the Conservatives dismissed his request. The Conservative side now says the Auditor General and the Speaker should release the report, but that wouldn’t seem to be possible—the AG’s office having said that its reports cannot be tabled unless Parliament is sitting.

The Star has posted the full list of projects funded by the G8 legacy fund.

'A puck in the face for taxpayers'

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 at 12:40 PM - 61 Comments

Whatever has been said about federal funding for a hypothetical arena for a hypothetical NHL team—and whatever you make of whatever has been said—the government is apparently still thinking about it.

A senior federal official confirmed that the Saskatchewan project is a “test case” that will determine how the government deals with large sports infrastructure projects, including a politically charged proposal from Quebec City. The P3 program is deemed, at this point, to be the most likely source of federal funding for stadiums and hockey arenas.

More from the archives here, here and here.

Never let a crisis go to waste

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, September 8, 2010 at 7:55 PM - 0 Comments

In a follow-up to yesterday’s report, CP’s Bruce Cheadle details at even further depth the government’s concerns and demands for signage.

“Although progress in the installation of signage had been slowed due to seasonal limitations, departments and agencies managed to increase the number of signs erected from 58 per cent to 65 per cent of the total number of signs to be installed,” Wayne Wouters, the powerful clerk of the Privy Council, wrote in a March 8, 2010, memorandum to the prime minister.

The “Update on Signage” memo, marked “Secret” and obtained by The Canadian Press under Access to Information, goes on to list the total number of signs — 5,275 — installed to that date. It cites 3,840 more that “have been ordered or are in production.”

“Departments have been using alternative methods for signage installation in order to sustain visibility by placing signs in windows, on buildings or employing other temporary measures,” Wouters wrote of the winter conditions.

'Destructive type of behaviour'

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, June 17, 2010 at 9:05 AM - 5 Comments

While Keith Ashfield dismisses concerns, Greg Thompson stands by his version of events and, in an interview with the CBC, explains how he brought his concerns to the attention of the Prime Minister’s Office. Meanwhile, the Premier of New Brunswick is displeased.

The Commons: A bridge too far

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, June 16, 2010 at 6:46 PM - 43 Comments

The Scene. The leader of Her Majestry’s loyal opposition very nearly growled at the Prime Minister. And having lamented the agenda, expense and organization of this month’s G8 and G20 summits, he turned metaphorical.

“A bake sale would not be run like this. A children’s birthday party would not be planned like this,” Michael Ignatieff posited. “Canadians have to pay the bill. How is the Prime Minister going to explain to Canadians that he has lost control of Canada’s summit?”

The Prime Minister stood and translated this into terms he could understand. “Mr. Speaker,” he said, “the Liberal Party seems extremely angry that Canada is leading the world right now in terms of the economy.”

“Mr. Speaker, we always cheer Canada,” Mr. Ignatieff responded.

The government side jeered.

“But we cannot cheer $1.3 billion in waste,” the Liberal leader finished.

With the grand and overarching condemnation thus stated, the Liberal leader turned to his assistant prosecutors to explore the specifics. Continue…

'This ranks right up there with the ugly'

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, June 16, 2010 at 10:26 AM - 21 Comments

Former cabinet minister and outgoing Conservative MP Greg Thompson busts his own side.

New Brunswick MP Greg Thompson is accusing fellow Conservative Keith Ashfield of putting politics before the needs of the people in his new position as regional minister for the province…

Thompson is incensed at an email he obtained earlier this month, written by Fred Nott, Ashfield’s chief of staff, concerning the status of an infrastructure application in St. George, part of Thompson’s New Brunswick Southwest riding. The application under the Building Canada Fund is for federal funding for a subdivision and civic infrastructure in the village of St. George. ”My opinion, put everything on hold in that riding until there is a nominated federal candidate, and preferably until after Sept. 27,” the email from Nott states.

A date for a nomination meeting to pick a Conservative candidate in New Brunswick Southwest has not been set. Sept. 27 is the date of the provincial election.

What if stimulus spending actually built something stimulating?

By John Geddes - Monday, March 1, 2010 at 10:16 AM - 23 Comments

The main focus of the build-up to this week’s federal budget is not what’s coming next but what’s coming to an end. The government vows to deliver no significant new spending, so the 2010 budget Finance Minister Jim Flaherty is slated to table on Thursday must, by default, draw attention to the winding down of the two-year stimulus spending spree he launched last year.

Most of the debate surrounding this Keynesian public-works binge—especially the $4-billion Infrastructure Stimulus Fund created in the 2009 budget— was over whether it would be enough to beat back the recession. (As the Globe and Mail’s redoubtable Janet McFarland reports this morning, most of the spending will flow after the worst of the downturn is well behind us.)

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