Up-to-date info an obvious need

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This article was published 01/03/2024 (944 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Manitoba Heavy Construction Association has for years complained that the provincial government refuses to release a detailed analysis of how much it would cost to bring infrastructure — including bridges, roads and highways — into good repair.

Turns out there’s a good reason for that: unlike other provinces in Canada, Manitoba — shockingly — doesn’t collect that information.

A consultant’s report on the province’s finances released last week by the NDP government shows Manitoba is an outlier in not regularly assessing the state of its infrastructure inventory.

“We found no evidence of an all-of-government assessment of infrastructure and state-of-repair document, as exists in many other Canadian jurisdictions,” the consulting firm MNP wrote in its 36-page report. “A document such as this would generally provide detail on the state of repair of government-owned assets and estimate the cost to bring those assets into a state of good repair over a period.”

The report focused primarily on the fiscal mess the previous Progressive Conservative government left when it decided to simultaneously slash taxes and boost spending in the months leading up to last year’s provincial election. Those combined actions led to a projected $1.6-billion deficit for 2023-24.

MNP made a startling discovery while combing through the books: the Manitoba government does not regularly assess the condition of its infrastructure and provide estimates of what it would cost to bring those assets into good repair.

That means when it releases its capital-spending plan each year as part of the annual budget — which includes spending on things such as roads, bridges, flood mitigation, schools, hospitals and other publicly funded assets — it has no idea how much it should be spending over time to ensure Manitoba has decent infrastructure. The province doesn’t even have a ballpark estimate, at least not an official one they make public.

Government could be spending too much or not enough — nobody knows. Judging by the state of Manitoba’s crumbling infrastructure, it’s likely the latter. Either way, it’s a major failure of government that appears to go back years, under both Tory and NDP governments.

“The absence of a whole-of-government assessment of infrastructure and state-of-repair inventory, to facilitate informed capital planning, is considered a gap that could have impacted the rigour of the capital-planning process, particularly as compared to other Canadian jurisdictions who have this information to inform their capital-planning process,” MNP wrote in its report.

The onus is now on the provincial government to explain why it doesn’t perform these assessments when it appears to be the norm in other provinces and at other levels of government.

The City of Winnipeg, for example, regularly releases information about its “infrastructure deficit,” which is based on a detailed spending report on how much it would cost to bring assets such as bridges, roads and buildings into good working order. Those reports include other discretionary (and, quite frankly, debatable) costs, including the widening or extension of certain roadways such as Kenaston Boulevard and Chief Peguis Trail. But at least they are itemized, with cost estimates for each, so elected officials and the public have some idea of the condition of the city’s infrastructure and the costs to improve it.

No such analysis exists at the provincial level.

The MNP report found the former PC government jacked up spending on infrastructure during its final year in office. The Tories planned to spend $3.1 billion on capital costs in 2023-24, an amount that was 72 per cent higher than the five-year average from 2018-19 to 2022-23. Was that the right amount to spend? Or was the five-year average the correct level? No one knows because there’s no assessment of what is required. When it comes to infrastructure spending, the provincial government is flying by the seat of its pants.

The first thing the NDP government has to do in response to the MNP report is order a detailed assessment of the province’s infrastructure needs. How can it determine how much to spend on infrastructure without knowing what is required over the long term?

Infrastructure spending at the provincial level is paid for entirely through debt financing. So, it’s important to know how much government needs to borrow to pay for things such as roads, bridges and buildings. Doing so blindly is the height of fiscal irresponsibility.

» Tom Brodbeck is a Winnipeg Free Press columnist.