An avalanche of tax cuts here. A plea for the third link over there. At the end of a first week of the campaign where the billions were flowing, let us ask you a quick question, to show how politicians forget priorities.
Posted at 5:00 a.m.
If you were given thousands of dollars, what would you do with that windfall?
A) Install a new swimming pool in your backyard.
B) Redo your roof which is about to sink.
Obviously, the pool project is much more exciting, because it adds to your quality of life. But, as a responsible owner, you know that it is preferable to redo the roof, otherwise water infiltration and mold will set in, and the work will be even more expensive in a few years.
Individually, you therefore choose the roof. But collectively, in Quebec, we choose the swimming pool.
To find out for sure, you have to dig into the Quebec Infrastructure Plan (PQI), an annual document that summarizes the funding provided for our infrastructure.
The figures are alarming. Over the past seven years, our infrastructure maintenance deficit has completely doubled. It went from 15.1 billion in 2015 to 30.6 billion in 2022. This is the money it would take to theoretically restore all our infrastructure to decent condition, overnight.
On the ground, it’s pitiful.
Talk to the patients of the Saint-Jérôme hospital, where water leaks are disrupting care. Or even to those of the Maisonneuve-Rosemont hospital, in Montreal, where the operating rooms have already been closed because a bat had found itself in places which must remain sterile.
Talk to Gatineau residents who use Boulevard de la Gappe, which tops CAA-Quebec’s list of worst roads in the province. Across the province, nearly half of our road network is in poor condition. The repair bill amounts to 19 billion. Bring some, orange cones!
And, while you’re at it, chat a bit with school students who have problems with ventilation, plumbing… and even mice, whose urine can be found on school equipment.
It’s not pranks: only two out of five schools are in a potable state. We are well below the 50% target, which the Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) has also lowered during its mandate. The 2 billion that François Legault promised this week for the renovation of schools will not be too much.
Over the past five years, the government has increased the envelope earmarked for all of our infrastructures by $51 billion. A 56% increase is not nothing. So why does the picture continue to darken?
It’s quite simple: the new money injected into the PQI was mainly channeled towards new projects… you know, the new swimming pool, rather than repairing the roof.
To tell you the truth, the growth in amounts earmarked for new projects (+121%) was four times higher than the growth in amounts earmarked for the maintenance of existing infrastructures (+30%).
These figures are taken from a presentation by the Public Policy Committee of the Association of Quebec Economists made last July.
A 30% increase in the maintenance budget is better than nothing. But it’s not enough. Because while we repair our infrastructure, it continues to deteriorate even faster.
It’s a bit like trying to empty a rowboat that’s taking on water with a boiler that’s too small. Despite the efforts, the boat will still end up sinking.
Let’s not wait to get there!
It’s time to prioritize maintenance, for real. To put the old before the new.
Otherwise, we shoot ourselves twice in the foot.
Not only do the new projects that are set in motion reduce the envelope available for the maintenance of existing infrastructures, but they also increase the demand for labour, which is already scarce in the field of construction. This increases costs, including for the maintenance of the existing one.
Afterwards, we end up with a project like the modernization of the Maisonneuve-Rosemont hospital, which will cost us at the very least $4.1 billion, we learned recently, when we expected a bill of 2 .5 billion last year.
The most ridiculous in all this is that the PQI estimates that the maintenance deficit of the entire health network is 1.4 billion. For the whole province, not just for one hospital! Come on, it’s not serious!
Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital is the canary in the mine. It proves that the figures presented in the PQI considerably underestimate the price to be paid to restore our infrastructures.
Let’s stop putting our heads in the sand collectively.
In the 1990s, Quebec tackled its budget deficit by adopting the Balanced Budget Actwhich has enabled us to regain control of our public finances.
Today, we must tackle our infrastructure deficit. We need a plan that is solid, transparent and verified by independent experts. Not a PQI who sees the future in pink.