Half of the bitumen applied to Quebec’s roads is in disrepair and the sums required to rectify the situation are exploding, now reaching more than $10 billion simply to resurface the roads.
The Auditor General of Quebec looked at the state of Quebec’s roads, focusing on the 31,000 kilometers of roadways that stretch across the Quebec government’s superior road network, excluding structures.
The finding is catastrophic despite the investments of recent years: 8,075 km of road have reached the end of their lifespan and require major rehabilitation work, reports the document tabled this morning in the National Assembly.
“They need corrective interventions, but the conservation work carried out is insufficient, so that the deficit in maintaining the assets of the road network is growing,” indicates the report.
This deficit, explains the team of auditor Guylaine Leclerc, increased by $3 billion between 2018 and 2022, i.e. since the election of the Coalition Avenir Québec. It has now reached $10 billion. This is a quarter of the entire government asset maintenance deficit, for the asphalt, concrete and gravel that line the roads.
However, the VG explains that Geneviève Guilbault’s ministry “does not have any projection model of the effect that natural degradation will have” and the new findings on the evolution of this deficit.
As a bonus, the Legault government changed the way of calculating this deficit in 2022, which allows it to improve the picture.
“Without these changes to the calculation parameters, the asset maintenance deficit estimated in 2022 would therefore have been $11.0 billion instead of $10.2 billion,” the report notes.
Thus, the VG is not able to assess the levels of investment necessary to control this development.
Also, for 2022 alone, the MTQ underestimated its deficit by $247 million, the organization estimates.
Heavy burden
The poor state of the road network now represents nearly 29% of the Treasury Board’s maintenance deficit.
“And those who are in poor condition will be subject to palliative work, which is called. So, these are works that are temporary, which do not correct the situation permanently, but which are palliative, as the word says, which are temporary,” explained Mr. Leclerc.
During the 2023 budget, the total deficit for the entire road network, including structures, reached $20 billion.
A mystery also remains over the actual amounts that should be budgeted to repair the roadways, because they don’t take into account the past year buffeted by inflation.
Last February, Infrastructure Minister Jonatan Julien declared that all major infrastructure projects would be victims of overheating in the construction sector. He gave the example of the Île-aux-Tourtes bridge in Montreal, which was going to cost $2 billion, or 45% more than expected.
Furthermore, notes the VG, “certain roadway rehabilitation works which would promote the sustainability of the road network are not planned, while a significant portion of those which are planned end up being postponed.”
Minister Geneviève Guilbault fled the media after the question period on Thursday. Its communications director wrote that the cabinet takes note of the AG’s report.
“Minister Guilbault is working on an action plan to correct the deficiencies raised by the VGQ. Last year, we announced $7.4 billion in investment to ensure the maintenance and improvement of road, maritime, rail and airport transportation networks. In 2022, 1,478 km of road were affected by road works,” he reported.