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Why Canada's infrastructure planning phase never ends

The Big Story
The Big Story
Episode • Jan 18, 2024 • 25m

In 2021, then-Infrastructure minister Catherine McKenna announced a process to assess all of Canada's existing infrastructure in order to better use $180 billion to fix, modernize and improve it over the next dozen years. After that announcement the government began a consultation process on how to do the assessment. At some point in the process there were roundtable discussions, written submissions, a report summarizing those submissions and discussions and ... everything but an infrastructure assessment.

What do we know and what don't we know about the state of Canada's roads and bridges, pipes and public places? Why hasn't the assessment even begun, years later? Why does the saga of the infrastructure assessment seem to explain so much of how our governments can operate, and why is it so darkly funny?

GUEST: David Reevely, Ottawa reporter, The Logic

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The Big Story • Why Canada's infrastructure planning phase never ends • Listen on Fountain