The 2016 Canadian Infrastructure Report Card pegs the total replacement value of municipal infrastructure across Canada at $1.1 trillion, and about 12% of it—worth $141 billion—is in immediate need of replacement. The expenditure is at odds with local governments’ abilities to raise funds.

In BC, “the annual budget process was set up to deal with current operations, not long-term planning and financing, writes Asset Management BC’s Wally Wells. “Operating and maintenance were part of the annual budget process with little or no thought or attention paid to longer-term renewal and replacement. Unfortunately, that infrastructure is now between 30 and 70 years old and needs replacing in order to function and provide necessary and, in many cases, essential services. This deficiency in the business process has now left communities facing huge renewal expenditures in excess of current capacity to meet them. Worse, we do not really know the magnitude of the expenditures or when they are needed.”

Download Spring 2016

Asset Management BC has developed a framework for sustainable asset management to assist local governments with current infrastructure challenges. Read more about the framework and how it was developed in “What are we doing about aging infrastructure?” in the Spring 2016 issue of Input, page 32.

More information about Asset Management BC

Join the conversation on Facebook