It seems like municipalities have been talking about the pent up demands of infrastructure renewal.
The issue is blatantly clear, infrastructure across this country can in large part be summed up in one word – old.
It doesn’t matter if you look at provincial highway, many of them a patchwork of past repairs and still pock marked with holes, to rural municipal bridges, to skating rinks to sidewalks, and of course underground water and sewer lines.
In many cases the aforementioned infrastructure dates back decades, much of it installed in the 1960s, with still lots dating back even further.
There is a life expectancy to all things, and while in most cases sewer lines, sidewalks, bridges, and arenas have been found to last longer than would normally have been expected, nothing lasts forever.
That is something municipal officials, both elected, and staff, have been talking about for several years now, and that certainly included voices from City Hall in Yorkton.
Of course the longer aging infrastructure remains in place the greater the threat of failure.
So renewal is needed.
We see that locally with Yorkton Council having talked about redoing Broadway Street in the city, from the water and sewer lines below ground, to the pavement above. That project would cost tens-of-millions; the last reasonable estimate around $50-million, and that is money the City does not have. It is also money that, if the City decided to initiate with only local money, would hamstring capital project investment in other areas of the city for several years.
Reasonably a project such as complete renewal of Broadway will need dollars to flow from federal and provincial governments.
The problem is that there are finite dollars available under even the best of conditions, and at present it is not the best of conditions.
The provincial government in Regina is awash in red ink, and looking at how they might claw back the wages of the working man in order to balance their books.
In Ottawa there are dollars for infrastructure, but by the time huge chunks of program dollars flow to vote-rich large cities, there are not a lot left for a Yorkton, and less still for a Kelvington, Saltcoats or Canora.
So the issue remains a critical one for municipal governments, as noted by incoming Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association President Gordon Barnhart of Saltcoats (see related article Page A1).
However, as critical as the question has been for years now, the overall political system, all three levels of government, still appear baffled about how to offer a reasonable answer of how to deal with the situation.
