Canada plans to welcome millions of immigrants. Can our aging infrastructure keep up?

[The_Foxer]

Canada plans to welcome millions of immigrants. Can our aging infrastructure keep up?

A crisis is looming for many cities, as the population is expected to hit 47.8 million people in 2043, experts say. Learn more

nationalpost.com

Spoiler - probably not.

We've talked about this but this article has a lot of facts that really hammer home how widespread the problem is. Some highlights:

Moffatt said a new school opened recently in London that had more portables than classrooms from day one.
“By the time they actually got the thing built, the population of children in the neighbourhood had, like, doubled over what had been projected.”
This overcrowded bus is being driven by much-needed immigration.

“The population (growth) is positive, but our infrastructure has to catch up and has to be able to keep pace, or else all of the types of frustrations and issues that we’re seeing today are only going to be magnified,” said Matti Siemiatycki, Canada Research Chair in infrastructure and finance at the University of Toronto’s School of Cities.

The Canada Mortgage Housing Corporation estimates that while there will be 19 million housing units in Canada by 2030, that will still be 3.5 million units short to “restore affordability.”


Under a best-case scenario, housing starts in Ontario, Quebec and B.C. will still be only half of what they need to be, the Canada Mortgage Housing Corporation said this year.

Compared to other nations, Canada has astonishingly high construction costs, even when accounting for factors such as geography and climate. Canada, according to analysis by transit researcher Alon Levy, pays hundreds of millions of dollars more per kilometre of light-rail line than other countries.

We all know what shape our hospitals are in. No need to discuss that.

We need immigration, but we also simply can''t afford it. I'm not sure what the answer here is.

 

[Ron in Regina]

Define “Our” in the will our aging infrastructure keep up?

Without reading the new story link above, I’m guessing “Our” he’s going to be defined as Vancouver and Toronto predominantly with a sprinkling of Ottawa and Montreal and Halifax potentially??

The chaff from that pile will sprinkle across some of the rest of Canada.

 

[The_Foxer]

Define “Our” in the will our aging infrastructure keep up?

Without reading the new story link above, I’m guessing “Our” he’s going to be defined as Vancouver and Toronto predominantly with a sprinkling of Ottawa and Montreal and Halifax potentially??

The chaff from that pile will sprinkle across some of the rest of Canada.

Well it depends a little on the infrastructure in question - there's much road infrastructure (mentioned in the story) that affects other areas, and it was noted that nothing really effective has replaced the greyhound bus system and that public transit is non existant outside the main urban areas etc.

But without a doubt it notes that the worst of it will be in the major metros as mentioned, like greater toronto, montreal and vancouver. And as you say in those provinces trouble in the metros will spill out to the other areas. There are also some smaller areas like kelowna that will experience problems because they're growing fast.

But problems in teh major metros will spell trouble for the prairies even if they dodge those specific issues. Services, most products and a large amount of the food and other consumables come through or from those areas, and inflation and interest rates will be affected by those areas.

 

[bill barilko]

nothing really effective has replaced the greyhound bus system

Doesn't matter no one used it anyway.

 

[The_Foxer]

Doesn't matter no one used it anyway.

Nobody used it MUCH - but when they did need it then it was a critical piece of infrastructure. It's absence causes issues.

 

[Jinentonix]

Does the govt really care? What better and easier way to help the Third and Developing World gain parity with the First World. Drag the First World down to their level.
I've argued for years that Toronto wasn't really able to cope with a lot of its aging infrastructure because it had to keep adding new infrastructure to keep pace with all the immigrants that keep parking themselves there. I imagine Vancouver and Montreal have faced similar issues but I could be wrong.

 

[The_Foxer]

What better and easier way to help the Third and Developing World gain parity with the First World.

well.... i mean, you're not wrong....

I imagine Vancouver and Montreal have faced similar issues but I could be wrong.

For sure, and really it's not just the big metros that are facing that problem at all. And of course when provinces are lookng at where to spend money and win votes they tend to look at the more urban areas, which means the smaller communities tend to get left out.

The fact is this has an impact everywhere and everywhere is already feeling the crunch. Emergency rooms have been shut in bc communities which means the better part of a 4 hour ambulance drive to the nearest one and people have died on the way.

 

[Jinentonix]

well.... i mean, you're not wrong....


For sure, and really it's not just the big metros that are facing that problem at all. And of course when provinces are lookng at where to spend money and win votes they tend to look at the more urban areas, which means the smaller communities tend to get left out.

The fact is this has an impact everywhere and everywhere is already feeling the crunch. Emergency rooms have been shut in bc communities which means the better part of a 4 hour ambulance drive to the nearest one and people have died on the way.

I know. Around here the paramedics are suggesting you might want to get a ride or take a taxi to the hospital if you need an ambulance because it could take as long as an hour for one just to show up. The ER here is also getting nuts. But that's been an issue for many Ontario ERs for quite a while now. Years ago the previous Liberal govt set up clinics to take the load off of the ERs. And it worked, for a while. Then they got kind'a neglected by the Libs and the stuff you used to go to the clinic for they just send you to the ER now. And few things irk me more than seeing an ER waiting room full of people tap tap tapping on their stupid fucking phones. If you're goddam lucid enough to fuck around with your phone, it probably ain't an emergency.

 

[spaminator]

 

[spaminator]

 

[petros]

I know. Around here the paramedics are suggesting you might want to get a ride or take a taxi to the hospital if you need an ambulance because it could take as long as an hour for one just to show up. The ER here is also getting nuts. But that's been an issue for many Ontario ERs for quite a while now. Years ago the previous Liberal govt set up clinics to take the load off of the ERs. And it worked, for a while. Then they got kind'a neglected by the Libs and the stuff you used to go to the clinic for they just send you to the ER now. And few things irk me more than seeing an ER waiting room full of people tap tap tapping on their stupid fucking phones. If you're goddam lucid enough to fuck around with your phone, it probably ain't an emergency.

Its been that way for decades here. If ambulatory take a cab. Triage will issue the driver a voucher. A $30 cab is far cheaper than $350 for a meat wagon.

 

[The_Foxer]

I know. Around here the paramedics are suggesting you might want to get a ride or take a taxi to the hospital if you need an ambulance because it could take as long as an hour for one just to show up. The ER here is also getting nuts. But that's been an issue for many Ontario ERs for quite a while now. Years ago the previous Liberal govt set up clinics to take the load off of the ERs. And it worked, for a while. Then they got kind'a neglected by the Libs and the stuff you used to go to the clinic for they just send you to the ER now. And few things irk me more than seeing an ER waiting room full of people tap tap tapping on their stupid fucking phones. If you're goddam lucid enough to fuck around with your phone, it probably ain't an emergency.

Yeah - i literally had to make that choice about ambulence services about 2 months ago and in the end it was faster to get a family member to come get me.

And I hear what you're saying about er's but honestly for a lot of people (around here at least) what else can they do? No family doctor, the walk in clinics are often beyond capacity so no help there, emerg is often the only place you can really go. The wait time at one of the local er's is frequently upwards of 12 hours - those people aren't there because there's better options and they're ignoring them.

The problem we're running into is that it often takes years to increase or improve the medical system capacity. They need to budget, think about available hard assets (hospital space etc) and then look at hiring the soft assets and perhaps increasing training opportunities etc - but the feds can decide tomorrow they're going to let more people in without warning. So this year justin announces an increase for next year - there is no chance that the provinces will catch up to that increase in less than 3 years. And if they were already right on the edge then the situation becomes progressively worse as time goes on. And then you get a few bad gov's that just ignore the issues because they don't know how to fix it, and boom. Here we are.

 

[petros]

Awareness of options makes an impact. A flood of TV and antisocial media ads goes along way.

 

[Taxslave2]

Define “Our” in the will our aging infrastructure keep up?

Without reading the new story link above, I’m guessing “Our” he’s going to be defined as Vancouver and Toronto predominantly with a sprinkling of Ottawa and Montreal and Halifax potentially??

The chaff from that pile will sprinkle across some of the rest of Canada.

Even out here, an area in our fire protection district there is a few km of undersized AC pipe that is always springing leaks.