More Money, Same Problems
CIC Chair and Vice-Chair weigh in on Canada's infrastructure deficit, and what it will take to fix it.
Canada's infrastructure deficit is often framed as a problem of insufficient investment. The prevailing narrative suggests that more capital — for housing, transit expansions, and water systems - will solve it. We know we must build new infrastructure in a way that improves efficiency, enables innovation, and delivers the outcomes we want to achieve, but Canada's core infrastructure challenge is not simply a story of underinvestment; it is underpinned by an inefficient system, with deferred maintenance and undervaluation of our existing assets at its core. Having more money to build new things will not close the infrastructure gap — we need a new approach.
Shortly after the Canadian Infrastructure Council released Canada's first National Infrastructure Assessment (NIA) focused on housing-enabling infrastructure, a news report highlighted an alarming fact; Calgary lost nearly a quarter of its water to leaks. As our report indicates, this is not a problem unique to Calgary. Across the country, we see leaking water systems, solid waste facilities approaching capacity, and traffic jams filled with single-occupant vehicles. The NIA also found more than $100 billion of existing housing-enabling infrastructure is in poor or very poor condition, requiring repair or replacement in the near term, particularly as climate pressures increase. We cannot just build our way out of this; we must also manage, optimize, and value the assets we already have.
The loss of treated drinking water through aging pipes is only one example of the cost of neglected maintenance. Yet we forgo maintenance and modern monitoring systems in favour of new construction. The deterioration piles up, resulting in a growing backlog of deficiencies for local governments to solve.
Land use patterns also contribute to the problem. For decades, instead of intensifying around existing transit, water and roads, many Canadian cities have sprawled outward, creating inefficient settlement patterns and a growing portfolio of infrastructure to service. In many cases, the maintenance costs of infrastructure in low-density areas are higher than the tax revenue collected to service it. Weak asset management practices compound these pressures. Many municipalities struggle to collect data and keep up to date inventories on the condition and performance of the infrastructure they own. Without reliable data, planning becomes reactive, maintenance is deferred and communities are even more vulnerable to climate events.
To top it off, we rarely pay the true cost of the infrastructure services we consume. Unlike many peer countries, our water pricing often fails to reflect scarcity, system capacity, or maintenance requirements. Road use across Canada is essentially free, contributing to congestion and growing maintenance demands. The tendency is to focus on the supply side — build more lanes, bigger pipes, new facilities — rather than manage demand and optimize existing systems.
We need to rethink our approach. This means prioritizing maintenance and upgrades, aligning land use with infrastructure capacity, and adopting tools that reflect the full lifecycle costs of infrastructure — from construction to operation to replacement. Most of all, it requires data driven decision-making that prioritizes long-term performance and resilience. This new approach will require less ribbon cuttings, and more courage to invest in the assets people cannot see and make decisions for which the benefits may only become clear over time.
Canada is at an inflection point. Without shifting how we value and manage what we already have, more capital will not close the gap. It will continue to mask the underlying dysfunction until the next crisis forces our attention. Given the current state of our infrastructure, and the growing climate risks, these failures will become more frequent and impactful.
For the second NIA, the Canadian Infrastructure Council is shifting its focus from defining issues and barriers to identifying practical, actionable solutions - both immediate and long-term. We launched a public Call for Evidence survey to hear from you. The Call will be open until June 15th, 2026. Answer the call here.
- Jen Angel, Chair, Canadian Infrastructure Council
- Peter Weltman, Vice-Chair, Canadian Infrastructure Council