It feels like Canadian governments have forgotten how to plan. As the op-ed states, we don’t have the sewer/water/road/fire for the 5,800,000 houses we’re building by 2030. And politicians aren’t budgeting for it’s construction.
In the bigger picture, we aren’t training enough nurses and doctors to service our current population, let alone what our population is forecast to become. Similarly, we aren’t funding post-secondary education beyond overcharging students from abroad.
But I digress. On the housing file:
The politicians who are promising action to build the 5.8 million new homes Canada needs by 2030 seem to be forgetting that, unlike that log cabin, the millions of homes that are needed can’t even begin to be built without connection to the world around them, to roads, bridges, clean water, electricity and waste management. They don’t seem to be factoring in that those houses will have people in them, millions of people, who need access to hospitals and schools, to civic and recreational facilities, to public transit, to emergency services. In other words, it is not possible to build so many new homes across Canada without considering essential housing-enabling infrastructure. Yet no one is even talking about that part of the equation, let alone announcing funding for it.
It is a significant oversight. A report by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities estimates that each new housing unit will require $107,000 in public infrastructure investment. This amounts to a total of $620-billion in new public funding needed to produce workable housing, which far outstrips currently projected investments of $245-billion.
A big part we need to touch on is transit and density.
The majority of all canadians live either in the Quebec-Windsor corridor or the Edmonton-Calgary coridor. These areas are primed for rail investment, density and localized transit investment.
If canada wants to meet its population, environmental, and economic goals we need a better plan than everyone driving their SUV down the 401. Even if all those SUVs are electeic that is a massive new demand to the energy grid. We should focus on making our cities better places where people can walk, cycle, take transit, or drive to get where they are going.
Right now we only really take driving seriously and it is bankrupting municipalities and Canadians while restrcitng young people, elderly people, and people with disabilities from getting around easily.
How’s this for a plan:
The severe planning deficit includes transit and climate change mitigation. Agreed.