cover image: Canada's infrastructure gap

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Canada's infrastructure gap

23 Jan 2013

The evidence is clear, both in the statistics, and in the everyday experi- ence of Canadians in every part of the country: in spine-jarring streets and highways; in mind-numbing and catastrophically wasteful traffic jams; in unresolved waste treatment problems and countless boil water orders; in the gradual decline in the state of repair of public property in older com- munities; in the struggles [...] Although net investment declined steadily over the 40 years between the late 1950s and the late 1990s, much of the damage was done in the first 20 years, when net investment dropped from its peak of 1.6% of GDP in 1959 to just 0.4% in 1979. [...] Looking at investment first, the difference between the 3.0% of GDP range that was typical of the 1960s and 1970s and the 1.5% range that be- came the norm in the late 1990s represents $24 billion in missing annual investment in public capital. [...] The cumulative effect of the underinvestment characteristic of the period of the 1980s and 1990s is dramatic. [...] From a financial perspective, the significance of the shift is that, over the 50-year period, infrastructure responsibilities shifted from the level of gov- ernment with the largest and most growth-responsive revenue base — the federal government — to the level of government with the smallest and least growth-responsive revenue base — local government.
government politics public finance economics economy taxation finance infrastructure recession gross domestic product investment public-private partnerships business economic policy government policy investments public works government budget fiscal deficits government budget balance deficits capital (economics) infrastructure (economics) economic slowdown

Authors

Mackenzie, Hugh

ISBN
9781771250535
Pages
16
Published in
Canada

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