Our public infrastructure is like a stingy patient who hasn’t been to the dentist for 40 years. After decades of neglect, he gets one root canal after another. Ouch! Not only does it hurt, but the bill is much higher than if he had always had his annual checkups.
This is where we are in Quebec with our roads, our schools, our hospitals, our power lines and our water pipes… like the one that turned into a huge geyser at the foot of the Jacques-Cartier Bridge last Friday.
This disaster is just the canary in the mine. Before other, even more serious tragedies occur, it is time to make the maintenance of our public infrastructure a real societal project, an absolute priority for our elected officials.
To do this, we should start by obtaining a complete health assessment of our infrastructure and by mandating a reliable and independent body to monitor the situation.
Ontario has all that. We don’t. When will we have a parliamentary budget officer, like our neighbours, to enlighten us?
In Quebec, we are forced to fall back on the Quebec Infrastructure Plan (PQI), which has considerable blind spots.
This annual document shows that almost half (44%) of provincial infrastructure is in poor condition.1. Horrible! To put them back in order, it would take $37 billion. This is called the asset maintenance deficit (AMD), a form of hidden debt that we are leaving to future generations.
The problem is that this sum does not take into account municipalities. Nor Hydro-Québec. And the sums there are even more staggering.
In Ontario, the DMA is three times higher on the municipal side than on the provincial side. By following these proportions, a group of researchers from CIRANO hypothesizes that the deficit of Quebec municipalities could amount to more than 90 billion2.
Given the colossal sums involved, it is absurd that we do not have the right time on this subject.
For now, we only know that Quebec cities and municipalities would have to pay $45 billion to upgrade their water infrastructure (and the roads above it), according to the Centre d’expertise et de recherche en infrastructures urbaines.3.
That’s a lot of money. But that doesn’t take into account other municipal assets, like buildings, other roads, transportation companies…
Hydro-Québec is also in the dark. How much is its maintenance deficit? No public document specifies this. A serious shortcoming.
But it is clear that the network continues to deteriorate, leading to a significant increase in outages. In 2023, customers were without electricity for an average of 1,072 minutes, three times more than in 2020.
The state-owned company’s equipment is aging rapidly, and Hydro-Québec is not equipped to face this challenge, the Auditor General lamented in 20224.
Since then, Hydro-Québec has announced its intention to double its investments to ensure the sustainability of its network, which will represent investments of 45 to 50 billion by 2035.
Adding up all these sums, we could therefore think that the deficit in maintaining our infrastructure exceeds 100 billion, hands down.
We cannot continue like this. There is an urgent need to act.
A significant portion of our public infrastructure was built in the 1960s and 1970s and will reach the end of its useful life in the coming years, if it has not already done so.
For years, maintenance has been cruelly neglected. For example, the City of Montreal invested $300 million per year, on average, over 10 years for the maintenance of its water equipment, when it should have invested $463 million.
Our negligence comes back to haunt us like a boomerang, as the inconveniences suffered during an unexpected breakdown cost almost twice as much as the upkeep up front, according to a study carried out for the Réseau Environnement.5Emergency repairs, mobilization of emergency services, water loss, compensation for damages… the bill quickly mounts up during a disaster.
As the saying goes, prevention is better than cure.
But for now, the patient’s health is only deteriorating. Since 2017, Quebec’s maintenance deficit has more than doubled. Yet Quebec is spending more money on maintenance. But not enough to change the trajectory.
The problem is that infrastructure is deteriorating faster than it can be repaired. And these repairs are becoming more and more expensive, due to high inflation in the construction sector, which is under pressure.
We need to do more. Otherwise, our infrastructure will hit a wall.
The current scenario is downright unsustainable, according to CIRANO projections. The amounts devoted to infrastructure are expected to increase from 6.5% of GDP today to 33% in 25 years.
Is this really the legacy we want to leave to future generations? No!
Let’s stop collectively burying our heads in the sand.
In the 1990s, Quebec tackled its budget deficit by adopting the Balanced Budget Actwhich has allowed us to regain control of our public finances. Bravo!
Today, we must tackle our infrastructure deficit with the same kind of enforcement tool that will prevent politicians from sweeping essential maintenance under the carpet, passing the problems on to future governments.
We need to find a way to hold elected officials accountable, to force them to prioritize the maintenance of existing infrastructure, even if it is more tempting to promise new projects to win elections.
1. Consult the Quebec Infrastructure Plan 2024-2034
2. Consult the study Quebec Infrastructure Plan: Interprovincial Comparison and Sustainability
3. Consult the 2023 Report on the Portrait of Water Infrastructure in Quebec Municipalities
4. Check the report Hydro-Québec: maintenance of electricity distribution network assets
5. Check the report Estimation of the return on investment for water infrastructure in Quebec