As bad as Canada’s water infrastructure currently is, greater problems lie waiting
Last week alone, a failing aqueduct in Montreal deprived the city’s biggest hospital of water, Toronto admitted that residents were getting huge water bills because one-third of its meters were faulty, and West Vancouver finally allowed swimming at a beach closed for two weeks because of high E. coli levels that could have come from sewage overflows.
Just stopping the country’s water systems from deteriorating further will cost billions. Actually fixing them up means an even bigger price tag. Still, continuing to gamble – hoping that necessary repairs can be put off for one more year, then another, risking major breakdowns for short-term savings – ultimately will cost more.
In many cities, per-capita water consumption has been falling. This is in part because of more efficient appliances, but it’s also because of higher user fees. People more carefully use what they have to pay for. And those fees were able to rise as much as they have because cities spun off water governance. Toronto, Halifax and Edmonton all have structures that leave decisions about water-usage costs to non-politicians.
One source of infrastructure funding has traditionally been development charges. These fees, levied on new homes, in theory pay for extra costs associated with that growth: new sewers and sidewalks and so on. But in some cases they’ve become a way to fund renewal of existing infrastructure by diverting the burden off existing homeowners, keeping their taxes low at the expense of new arrivals. That was always an unfair approach.
Infrastructure City Country Week Edmonton Cost Condition Halifax Globe Edmonton
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