Rural municipalities across Canada need tens of billions of dollars in investments to maintain, upgrade and expand their roads, bridges and other infrastructure, says a leading Saskatchewan rural politician.
David Marit, president of the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities, was in Ottawa last week as part of a delegation from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities to argue that Ottawa should invest in municipal infrastructure.
The federation presented a report that argued the infrastructure deficit in Canada’s rural and urban municipalities is $123 billion, up dramatically from earlier estimates of $60 billion.
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“I would say in rural Canada, we are looking at investment needs in the range of $20 billion to $30 billion,” Marit said Nov. 22.
In rural Saskatchewan, as many as 1,800 bridges still being used were built in the 1950s or before, he said.
“That alone would cost $500 million to upgrade.”
In addition, rural roads built when farmers drove small trucks and the haul to the grain elevator was typically a few miles now face large trucks hauling heavy loads much longer distances.
“We are spending $200 million a year for maintenance and construction and we are falling behind,” said Marit.
One of the issues prairie rural politicians brought to Ottawa was a request that the federal government find money to replace the Prairie Grain Roads Program that was set up after the Liberals killed the Crow rate railway subsidy for grain movement in 1995, opening the door to escalated branch line abandonment and increased trucking.
The federal response was cool to the plea from the urban and rural municipal politicians. Federal ministers noted that under the constitution, municipalities are the responsibility of the provinces and not Ottawa.
And they noted that the federal government is transferring billions of dollars of gas tax revenues to municipalities over four years.
