Canada’s Auditor General says the government’s $4.6 billion program to strengthen transportation infrastructure across the country suffers from weaknesses in monitoring and reporting of results, but is overall well designed and implemented .
The federal government launched the National Trade Corridors Fund in 2017 with the goal of strengthening Canada’s road, rail, airport and port network by 2028. Projects from municipal and provincial governments as well as private companies range from from routine street improvements to multibillion-dollar port terminal upgrades.
In a report released Tuesday, Karen Hogan welcomes the fact that through its National Trade Corridors Fund, the Department of Transportation has taken an evidence-based approach to identifying supply chain bottlenecks and launch a call for proposals for projects.
For example, saturated terminals and overloaded warehouses in recent years have led authorities to solicit bids for port modernization and expansion, notes the Auditor General.
However, half of the 181 funded projects did not include a comprehensive performance measurement strategy, leaving their impact unclear, according to the report. A handful of these projects didn’t even have a performance measurement strategy.
The Auditor General concludes that “the department did not provide effective monitoring and reporting of results.”
“For the remaining five years of the Fund, Transport Canada must strengthen its monitoring and reporting systems to appropriately assess the success of projects and, ultimately, that of the Fund,” added Ms.me Hogan in a statement.
“Because of this aspect related to the passage of time, it is all the more important to put in place a rigorous system to monitor the results, so that Transport Canada can demonstrate the extent to which the Fund has contributed to improving the fluidity of the national transport infrastructure. »
The lack of monitoring has also produced radio silence on how the program could support the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, Ms.me Hogan in his report.
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The industry has welcomed the federal investments, but says the program falls far short of the tsunami of funding unleashed in the United States, as well as the kind of comprehensive strategy needed to solve nagging problems.
Since 2021, the Joe Biden administration’s $1.2 trillion infrastructure project has funded some 40,000 projects aimed at modernizing the US transportation network.
“There is no proportionate funding from us, particularly for maritime infrastructure,” said Jason Card, spokesperson for the Chamber of Maritime Commerce.
“The disastrous consequence of this is that we will potentially fall behind in our carbon emissions reduction targets, in the strength of our supply chain and in our economic development goals.
“These things have a ripple effect if ports do extraordinary things south of the border for three, four or five years, and we don’t keep up,” Mr. Card said.
Trade associations and analysts also want a more consistent approach to the overall flow of goods in and out of Canada.
The government launched a national infrastructure assessment in 2021, but more than two and a half years later, Ottawa has yet to act on recommendations – such as creating an independent commission on key infrastructure opportunities .
The United States, the European Union, Australia and Switzerland have established comprehensive transport infrastructure strategies, the European Court of Auditors noted in 2021. This is not the case for Canada.
Other weaknesses of the Fund
The Auditor General highlights other weaknesses in the National Trade Corridors Fund.
The Ministry of Transport thus evaluated project proposals using a merit-based approach, “but could not demonstrate what it relied on to prioritize certain meritorious projects over others,” the report states. .
Documentation outlining the benefits of the various projects recommended by officials was “insufficient” to support their final ranking, the Auditor General found.
However, the Auditor General’s office found no cases of funds being given to recipients who were not eligible for them.
As of December 31, 2023, Transport Canada had approved a total amount of $3.8 billion to fund 181 transportation projects, and approximately 20% of this budget has been spent since 2017.