Beyond the big-dollar projects, there are thousands of smaller projects getting the go-ahead.
The rumours that infrastructure would be a high priority in Budget 2009-and that to cash in, projects needed to be “shovel-ready”-prompted the creation of myriad lists.
The Toronto City Summit Alliance and Toronto Board of Trade released a list of priority projects with a heavy focus on transit. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) compiled a list of 1,000 shovel-ready projects (see “Shovel-Ready Snapshot” to the right). After the budget came out, FCM President Jean Perrault said, “We’re pleased by the federal budget’s allocation of $4 billion to upgrade existing infrastructure. These dollars will help cities and communities begin to address the country’s growing backlog in road, sewer, bridge and public transit repairs.”
Others have complained funding still isn’t flowing fast enough. This February, Liberal critic John McCallum questioned the government’s commitment to quickly implementing the stimulus, saying Ottawa still hasn’t spent all the infrastructure money in past budgets. According to CP, Minister of Finance Jim Flaherty agreed that bureaucratic checks and balances are a problem, but said he believed public servants understand the urgency of the situation. After a meeting with the Conservative caucus, he said $6 billion in infrastructure projects contained in the January budget are moving through the system quickly. “There will be some mistakes made, but it’s worth the risk to help the majority of Canadians during what is a serious recession.”
shov.el read.y • adj.
No phrase has been typed into more announcements, press releases and speeches so far this year than “shovel ready.” What does it really mean?
According to FCM, it means “projects that do not appear in a municipality’s 2009 funded capital budget, but which could be started in 2009 with additional funding.” It also means projects won’t trigger EAs because they are “built into existing footprints.” They’re simple in terms of the engineering required, usually rehabs.
As for the larger, new projects on FCM’s mega-list, the significant design and regulatory requirements have already been completed, and the projects are just waiting for funding.
At the combined OGRA/ROMA conference this February, Ontario Minister of Energy and Infrastructure, George Smitherman, said, “There’s been some debate regarding what ’shovel-ready’ means.” He went on the say that Ontario’s government has “put a hard lens” on what the phrase means. But he never did define it for the crowd of local politicians and public works professionals.
Budgeting North of the Border
In a February, 2009, report, Washington-based CG/LA Infrastructure’s Norman Anderson assesses the Unites States’ infrastructure plan, how Canadians should think about it and where the opportunities might be. He says, “I think that [the plan] fits in nicely with some of the core capabilities of Canada’s leading companies.”
Anderson says a “smart grid,” something Canadian governments are seriously considering looks probable, though it will cost about $165 billion over 20 years, or a doubling of the current investment levels to $16 billion per year. Beyond just the grid, energy efficiency appears to be a big winner under the Obama program, but Anderson says there’s not much evidence that the incentives are going to create whole new industries.
One of the more interesting initiatives, as Anderson sees it, involves doing whatever it takes to return manufacturing to the U.S. green-collar jobs have some heavy support in the form of the Gore wing of the Democratic Party, the unions, and the vast majority of people who think the U.S. is doomed without a revitalized manufacturing sector.
So who is going to take advantage of the new industry in the States? Anderson says firms could take the opportunity to occupy a new value chain if a smart grid becomes reality. Digital services companies, for example, can lead the revitalization of the $800-billion national electricity system.
Anderson says, “Think of Bombardier producing train sets in the Midwest in a joint venture with Honeywell. And think of a wired train system, with technology produced by Emerson, the lines strung and managed by Quanta and Vestas in cooperation with family farmers throughout the U.S., providing the electricity.”
All this change equals new opportunities for investment. If a National Infrastructure Bank is put into place, Anderson predicts a revolution in the way the U.S. finances infrastructure.
We’ve mapped some of the larger projects that are getting federal dollars under the new budget. Some of the figures in the legend are the total joint funding (federal, provincial and municipal) received.
The Big Ticket
Unlike Toronto, which is getting a shout-out with funding for the long-awaited renewal of Union Station, Ottawa is not getting any big ticket items.
But the real project volume across Canada is coming from smaller projects. In Ontario, a total of 289 projects are being funded with $1 billion from the federal government.
Altogether, 46 Saskatchewan projects are getting $63 million from the provincial and federal governments via the Building Canada Fund.
Alberta is investing $76 million in 22 municipal infrastructure projects through the Canada-Alberta Building Canada Fund. The federal and provincial governments will cover $48 million, with municipalities picking up the rest.
The budget makes note of a dozen priority projects in Prince Edward Island, though we’ve only mapped the four largest.
In Northern Canada, $87 million has been promised over the next two years to maintain or upgrade key Arctic research facilities. Also included in the budget is $37.6 million towards regulatory and environmental assessment processes related to the proposed Mackenzie Valley natural gas pipeline in the Northwest Territories, plus funding for water treatment programs in the Yukon.
Over the next two years, there will also be $323 million to restore federally-owned buildings (including some in Ottawa), an additional $80 million to manage and assess federally-owned brownfields, and $165 million for remediation work.
Map Legend
British Columbia
1. $350M: construction of the $1.4-billion?Evergreen Transit Line, Vancouver
2. $1.9M: repairs at Steveston ?Harbour, Richmond
3. $5.29M: construction of ?Nicomekl bridge, Langley
4. No Specific Amount (NSA): construction of Wood ?Innovation and Design Centre, Prince George
5. NSA: expanding transmission ?capacity along Highway 37
6. NSA: construction of a law school at ?Thompson Rivers University, Kamloops
7. NSA: construction on key transportation ?corridors, including the Cariboo Connector, ?the Pine Pass, Kicking Horse Canyon and ?the Trans-Canada Highway
8. NSA: expansion of a new northern ?transportation hub, Prince George
9. NSA: phase two expansion of the ?Port of Prince Rupert
10. $7.9M: housing for aboriginal ?families, Port Alberni
11. $3.3B: construction of ?New Port Mann Bridge, Fraser River
12. ?$1.5M: upgrades to ?Britannia Elementary, Vancouver
13. $1.9M: upgrades to Sir James ?Douglas Annex, Vancouver
14. $2.2M: upgrades to McLeod Road ?Elementary, Surrey
15. $1B: construction of the south ?Fraser Perimeter Road Project
16. $14.2M: upgrades to wastewater ?treatment plant, Kamloops
17. $1.7M: upgrades to sewage ?treatment plant, Fort St. John
Alberta
18. $130M: twinning of a ?section of Trans-Canada Highway, Banff National Park
19. NSA: construction of new Telus Science Centre, Calgary
20. $5M: phase one construction ?at Nisku Spine Road, Nisku
21. $3M: renovations to ?Jasper Activity Centre ?and Aquatic Centre
22. $6M: upgrades to a $10-million water treatment plant, Hinton
23. NSA: expansion of highways between Edmonton and Fort McMurray
Saskatchewan
24. NSA: construction of a Highway 39 truck bypass, Estevan
25. $26.4M: renovations to St. Peter’s College (as part of educational funding), Muenster
26. $15M: construction of ?new on-campus residences ?at University of Saskatchewan, Maidstone, Yorkton, ?Langenburg, Regina and ?Prince Albert
Manitoba
27. $7.9M: new capital ?projects for the Keewatin Railway Company
28. NSA: construction of ?Centreport Project at ?Inland Port, Winnipeg
29. NSA: improvements to a six-kilometre stretch of Trans-Canada Highway, Headingley
30. $11M: expansions at Brandon University, Brandon
Ontario
31. $14.5M (not confirmed): renovations ?at the Blue Water Bridge, Sarnia, and ?the Peace Bridge, Fort Erie
32. $50M: construction of new research facility for Institute for Quantum Computing, Waterloo
33. NSA: twinning key sections of ?Trans-Canada Highway along ?Northern Highways 11 and 17
34. NSA: renewal of Union Station, Toronto.
35. $750,000: pier rehabilitation at ?Southampton Harbour
36. NSA: construction of HELP Clean ?Water Project, Huron, Elgin, London
37. $700M: upgrades to Woodward Avenue ?wastewater treatment plant, Hamilton
38. $1.1M: towards $3.7-million worth ?of renewal on Fairall Street, ?Station Street and Mills Road, Ajax
39. $13.7M: construction of ?Port Colborne Sports Complex
Quebec
40. $407M (not confirmed): additional Via ?Rail tracks between Toronto and Montreal
41. $212M: renewal of the ?Champlain Bridge, Montreal
42. $2M: development of a renewal plan ?for Manège Militaire, Quebec City
43. NSA: twinning of Trans-Canada ?Highway route 185
44. $1.3M: renewal of Etang-du-Nord ?Harbour, Gaspé Region
45. $800,000: renewal of Grosse-Ile ?Harbour, Gaspé Region
46. $1.5M: renewal of Daniel-Est ?Harbour, Gaspé Region
47. $224M: expansions at Dorval interchange ?redevelopment project, Montreal
48. $7.9M: new capital projects for two ?First Nations Railways, Quebec and Labrador
New Brunswick
49. NSA: completion of the ?Fundy Trail Parkway
50. NSA: improvements ?at Shippagan Harbour.
51. $2.2M: improvements to ?the Centre Culturel de Saint-Quentin and construction of a permanent outdoor facility, Saint-Quentin
Nova Scotia
52. NSA: renewal of bridges ?on the National Highway System
53. $3.8M: redevelopment at Lower ?East Pubnico Harbour, Pubnico
54. $3.2M: upgrades to ?wastewater system, Yarmouth
P.E.I.
55. $4.5M: construction of ?Summerside Wind Energy Project
56. $200M: small craft harbour repair
57. $2M: wharf stabilization, ?Wood Islands Harbour
58. $1.1M: wharf construction and shore protection, Miminegash Harbour
Newfoundland
59. NSA: improvements to ?Trans-Canada Highway
60. $1.9M: wharf construction, ?Belleoram Harbour
Yukon Territory, Northwest Territories, Nunavut
61. NSA: improvements to ?Bypass Road, Yellowknife
62. $217M: construction of Pangnirtung ?Harbour (as part of funding for ?small craft harbours across Canada)
63. NSA: construction of Piqqusilirivvik ?cultural facility, Clyde River
This article appears in our March-April 2009 Issue
March 13th, 2009 at 2:55 pm
With all this money for ’shovel-ready’ projects and thousands of people newly unemployed, the only ingredient needed is the shovels themselves. Figuratively speaking of course, I’m sure the local Canadian Tire has lots of real ones. The shovels I am talking about is the political will required to sign the approvals, building permits and contruction contracts. We’ll see in twelve months which communities, cities and provinces put their money into actual shovels in the ground, not just ’shoveling’.
March 17th, 2009 at 4:23 am
We’ll be following all of these projects to see which ones actually make it and which ones end up scrapped. Some are even Top 100 contendors…stay tuned!