Canadian Politics Today

The report released this morning from the parliamentary budget office says that of the $13.6 billion in infrastructure money slated to be spent between 2016 and 2018, departments have only identified $4.6-billion worth of projects.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/infrastructure-pbo-delays-sohi-1.3963108

It would seem a common theme in Canadian politics.  If infrastructure spending is needed so badly, why is it so hard to identify projects and get it out the door?

Even worse, from the same story:

The report also takes the government to task for its transparency on spending, saying the Liberals have not provided any performance measurement framework to make sure the money is meeting its intended goals.

So, not only are we not able to identify what to spend the money on, but we're unable to know if it was well spent.  With so much money on the line, that seems like a recipe for disaster.

It would seem a common theme in Canadian politics.

Yes, it is.  I have no idea why but i wonder, like the conservatives and probably the liberals before them is this a way of cooking the books a bit, holding the money back so they can make the deficit look a bit smaller.

It could be.  Or it could be that the process for much of this is so constrained and bureaucratic that money can't ever get out the door without the worst kind of hassle.

Thats probably also true, there have got to be a lot of projects that provincial governments are more than ready to get started on.

That's not good when you are planning on running deficits in perpetuity and have nothing to show for it.  It's sad when the pipelines are the only infrastructure projects going.  Had Trudeau fast tracked energy East and did something like twinning the grand Canada highway in Ontario that would help justify some deficit.

One good thing we are getting out of this is the first phase of twinning in Yoho National Park in BC.  I don't think that much of Ontario actually warrants twinning.  I drove that highway about 18 months ago, and it's undergone a lot of improvements.