National Post stirring the pot. She literally said the new spending was fantastic. They buried that several paras in.
Yes, it's great.
No, it's not enough.
But also, we don't have the ability to spend more in the short term anyway. So....
Canada moves to 2% GDP end of FY25/26 - PMMC
- Thread starter Maxman1
- Start date
National Post stirring the pot. She literally said the new spending was fantastic. They buried that several paras in.
Yes, it's great.
No, it's not enough.
But also, we don't have the ability to spend more in the short term anyway. So....
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It can. If needs must and you are the one stuck with fixing the problem.
....
The pipe most recently ruptured in December, flooding streets in the northwest and triggering Stage 4 water restrictions citywide. The break occurred a few days before an independent review panel released its report on the water main, which painted a damning picture of how the city governed and managed its water utility assets over the past 20 years.
The 86-page report detailed what its author, retired ATCO executive Siegfried Kiefer, called “systemic gaps” in Calgary’s water utility management throughout the past two decades.
“The panel has traced these gaps to external pressures, risk asset integrity processes, ineffective management and a lack of effective governance oversight,” the report read.
“The city’s water utility processes were not sufficiently robust to manage a complex system of this nature, especially with challenging external pressures.”
.....
Calgary's crumbling feeder main has more wire snaps, repairs to be done during construction of second line
An exit ramp along 16th Avenue N.W. westbound to Sarcee Trail has been closed as the city begins new repairs
calgaryherald.com
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Repair the water mains or save the planet? Where best to spend taxes?
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My point was that someone often needs to do the unsexy, because the people who should have done it years ago spent the time/money on shiny things to get elected/be popular.It can. If needs must and you are the one stuck with fixing the problem.
....
The pipe most recently ruptured in December, flooding streets in the northwest and triggering Stage 4 water restrictions citywide. The break occurred a few days before an independent review panel released its report on the water main, which painted a damning picture of how the city governed and managed its water utility assets over the past 20 years.
The 86-page report detailed what its author, retired ATCO executive Siegfried Kiefer, called “systemic gaps” in Calgary’s water utility management throughout the past two decades.
“The panel has traced these gaps to external pressures, risk asset integrity processes, ineffective management and a lack of effective governance oversight,” the report read.
“The city’s water utility processes were not sufficiently robust to manage a complex system of this nature, especially with challenging external pressures.”
.....
Calgary's crumbling feeder main has more wire snaps, repairs to be done during construction of second line
An exit ramp along 16th Avenue N.W. westbound to Sarcee Trail has been closed as the city begins new repairs
.....
Repair the water mains or save the planet? Where best to spend taxes?
Whether it's not repairing water mains, or buying new toys to distract from the crumbling and unmaintained ones we already have. The tendency is to buy new things rather than fix the old stuff we bought years ago.
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And, on top of that, the new sexy things being bought are often of less quality and of less overall longevity that the issues tend to come more often and more severe as time goes on.
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Absolutely.
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Governments fail to focus on essentials. Film at 11.
Bad news is that "starve the beast" conservativism appears to have failed; "add programs until we have to raise taxes" progressivism has won.
Bad news is that "starve the beast" conservativism appears to have failed; "add programs until we have to raise taxes" progressivism has won.
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I take comfort in all those layer cake ancient cities buried under desert sands. Eventually renewal happens.
I get the distinct impression that about 5 HRM councilors only got elected to deliver bike lanes in an eighteenth Century City.
It's called the Suburban Growth ponzi scheme. Suburban growth almost never pays enough in taxes to fund full replacement cost over the lifetime of said infrastructure. So cities respond by sprawling further to get those sweet development charges that can keep the ponzi going.
No politician is ever going to change this. Why would they? If that councillor ran on a platform that said "I will not expand a thing, but instead will raise taxes to make sure infrastructure is at 100% serviceability", most of your neighbours (and maybe even you) would call him all kinds of nasty names, label him fiscally irresponsible and tar and feather him out of office. Most people want the lie. And will vote for it.
This isn't just a local phenomenon. Happens at every level. It's why we have huge federal and provincial deficits too.
Hell, there's evidence it's generational too. There's evidence that Boomers largely voted for fiscal conservatism when it benefited them as a cohort (didn't want higher taxes during peak working years) and have now rejected austerity because they want all that healthcare spending and social supports.
Halifax Tar
Army.ca Legend
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Halifax Tar
Army.ca Legend
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That's us. We need to look in the mirror and demand the unsexy get done.
But we have an aloof and simple people who will get distracted with bike lanes and hockey games.
I have little faith much will change.
KevinB
Army.ca Relic
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That is most of the West. We have been caught up in an immediate gratification circle, and fail to look beyond our noses.
The Colosseum was designed to entertain and distract the masses...
Maybe our grandkids will learn.
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Different pipes, different departments, different schedules, different budgets....and different crises.
Incompetence carries a lot of weight that it doesn't deserve.
Circumstances are always changing.
The biggest issue, IMO, is the lack of adequate contingency funding. If every penny has to be justified then nobody will leave the necessary billions in a contingency fund, untouched.
Cash is king.
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Another myth, depending on where political boundaries are drawn and how people choose to run their local governments. Rather than cities subsidizing suburbs, in a few cases American major cities have been trying to amalgamate suburb cities into larger metro areas in order to get at the suburban tax base and repurpose part of it to deal with their "inner city" problems.
"We can easily see the problem with this common argument based on the author’s own words, as suburbs are “propped up” by the densely populated “areas in the same city.” Most American suburbs — at least the ones in California — operate as independent cities. In my suburb, taxpayers are paying for our infrastructure the same way as taxpayers in the neighboring big city pay for their infrastructure. There’s no city-to-suburb subsidy here.
In fact, suburban tax rates often are lower than urban ones, as we have more efficient services thanks to less bureaucracy, fewer social service programs, more limited public spaces, and less powerful municipal unions. In some cases, suburbs — especially smaller, wealthier ones — have higher tax rates than neighboring cities, but the cities aren’t subsidizing them. The suburban residents are paying them. Cities are sometimes net exporters of tax revenue to the state, although sometimes they are the recipient of more than their share. Suburban Orange County, California, for instance, has long been a donor county."
Canadian cities might be politically organized and run so as to give the appearance of "suburban subsidy", but obviously that's not the only solution - just one that the locals chose or apathetically allowed politicians and special interests to impose. Costs downloaded by higher levels of government are also not the fault of suburbs, except to the extent that they choose to accept the costs rather than ignore the resulting gaps. (Latest example: municipalities choosing to own and run primary care health clinics. That directly competes with everything else the municipalities either must or choose to take on.)
