Lol they definitely did not take better care of infrastructure. They were freaking cowboys and a ton of municipalities got burnt on it. I work on lots of capital jobs that involve fixing problems that have been around since then.

So now they have much more stringent standards, which in turn means projects are more expensive. Add onto that the growing complexity - installing a water main down a street in 1980 when you have overhead hydro lines and no other utilities to work around is much easier than installation in a crowded right-of-way with buried gas, hydro, storm sewer, sanitary sewer, and existing water main that needs to continue to service residents.

As for how they were originally funded, idk. Don’t think they ever really asked residents what they wanted back then. Now there’s much more accountability, which is good but has drawbacks and costs.

In Canadian municipalities specifically, or in general, like for climate reasons?

I mean climate, but not specifically global warming, just the fact were a planet with finite resources.

Unfortunately some municipalities have used development fees incorporated into their normal budget, whether directly or indirectly, rather than solely using them to account for the increased costs in maintenance, which is what they should be for. Often times I’ve worked on capital projects (repair ones) where the funding has come directly from development.

For example, one municipality I work closely with has the salaries for all their development staff and the salaries for their capital design staff paid by development fees, plus some allocations for expansion of other services to account for more citizens.

Edit for clarity: Municipalities can also skirt this use by doing things like the following: a long stretch of road from a highway is in poor condition and needs to be repaired in the next 2 years. But a development is going in on the road, and they can force the developer to pay for the reconstruction of the road, despite the fact that it is in poor xondition and needs to be redone anyway. Ditto for sewer, or water main replacement.

Note - I work in Ontario, and this is my experience as an engineering consultant working with dozens of municipalities.

We’re finally at the end of infrastructure lifespan point for a good chunk of the province. That means Water/Wastewater plants, as well as the hundreds of kilometers of pipes required to transmit those liquids are at the end of their life for the first time since being installed (50-70 years).

The cost to replace those is enormous, and IMO, should be covered primarily by property tax and/or useage fees. However those fees have not actually set aside the money required in many places, which means that municipalities have been propping up their old infrastructure costs by charging large development fees. Doug Ford, as much as I hate him, slashed development fees allowed, which forced property tax rates to rise. This more accurately reflects the ACTUAL cost of owning a home with services by the municipality. Given that I believe growth stagnation is required, this is the direction we need to head. We can’t keep running this ponzi scheme of funding old infrastructure with new infrastructure fees. Its unfair to new buyers and subsidizing older homeowners.

We also likely need to take a look at the actual fees and costs associated with maintaining our infrastructure. Stormwater ponds, seen typically in subdivisions, are HORRIBLY under-serviced, with a recent investigation in our area revealing 75% of them had never been cleaned out since being put into service ~30-50 years ago. They typically have a service life of 10-20 years, and have been leaking pollutants into our creeks and waterways since. The primary reason - you guessed it, budget. At 1+Mil/cleanout, they’re expensive.

We’ve skated by up till now by externalizing these costs and letting the damages build up for tomorrow’s solutions. We can’t keep putting off those costs.

negligible or can be overcome with training

I agree on a highscool/grade school level, but not at any extreme competitive level. There’s a reason most of the world records for athletics are held by men.

Testosterone doesn’t make all men better than all women, but if you take two equally trained+talented people for most athletic events, the men outperform the women.

Our last government was a minority and made it the full 4 years

Something also not touched on in the article is the HUGE number of ukrainians we have in our country, particularly in the praries. We’re ranked in the top 3 for ukrianians/Ukraine heritage, below Ukraine and Russia.

I’d argue most Canadians are pretty pro-Ukraine, and the US wiffle-waffling on that as well stings deep.