Attendees at National Infrastructure Summit in Regina agree change is needed

There's a concensus at the National Infrastructure Summit in Regina that many things have to change in Canada before our $123 billion dollar infrastructure gap can be addressed.

More than 350 delegates from across the country are trying to figure out how to fix Canada's roads, bridges, tunnels, sewers, and community centers. Politicians among the crowd insist a new, long-term federal funding plan needs to take the place of the current property tax system. However, several experts taking the podium believe that's not all that needs addressing.

Keynote speaker Penny Burns explains our billions of dollars worth of public investments are aging at two per cent a year, a pace our funding can't keep up with.
“Are you prepared to set aside two per cent of this amount every year in preparation for renewal?” Burns asked the crowd in her address Thursday afternoon. “If we are honest, and we must be honest, we know this is never going to happen.”

Burns helped Australia figure out how to keep track of its infrastructure 25 years ago. Proper asset management, she stresses, is the key to learning how to spend strategically.

“You may not have the money to do everything you want to do but at least you can rest assured that the things that you are doing are more valuable to your community than the things you are not doing.” She insists everything about infrastructure needs to change, with accountants, architects, and politicians all involved to find innovative alternatives.

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Award-winning urban planner Jennifer Keesmaat also wants to see changes in how cities are physically laid out. “We need to plan tighter, more dense communities and quite frankly we can have a very high quality of life doing so,” she insists. She points to cities like New York and London, dense areas where infrastructure is not being wasted. She notes that projects like public transportation may seem important in a city like Regina but they simply aren’t sustainable when there’s only ten people riding a bus at a time.

The summit wraps up Friday afternoon. Mayor Pat Fiacco hints that it there will likely be an announcement of a working group that will be put in place to ensure the work done during the summit doesn’t go to waste.

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