While there have been a lot of questions about why federal stimulus funding isn’t “rolling out” fast enough, almost nobody has examined whether or not it’s rolling too quickly. Federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s announcement last Friday that stimulus funding will flow faster in 2010 now that engineering studies and environmental assessments (EAs) are finished reminds us that infrastructure, if done right, takes a little time to get…rolling.
According to Flaherty, funds are now “snowballing”–that’s how fast they’ve started rolling.
It’s worth reminding journalists, industry professionals and bloggers that while some projects (say, a road repaving) can get started right away, there are others (say, a new wastewater treatment plant) that take time to plan and design. While many have urged the federal and provincial governments to streamline the EA process so these projects can get rolling (sorry, I’ll stop) but the reality is, even with streamlined EAs, a complex project should take more than a month or so to reach the construction stage.
As for whether or not this latest announcement proves the Liberals were right all along–that almost no stimulus funding has been spent so far–that’s a subject for a different post.
December 21st, 2009 at 5:52 pm
Excellent point, Mira. I never thought about money rolling out too fast – one would not think about that being a problem when it comes to government.
With respect to streamlined EA’s and Certificates of Approval for wastewater treatment plants, water treatment plants and other infrastructure, the fastest timeline I’d give out is 6 months.