With at least two million jobs lost across Canada due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the economy officially in recession, more stimulus is expected from the federal government to get the economy moving again.
To date, the government has spent more than $145 billion on direct support for Canadians related to COVID-19.
Beyond what has already been pledged for stimulus, experts say additional investments in infrastructure, especially related to clean technology, are one of the best ways to get people back to work and to leave a lasting legacy.
Following the Great Recession of 2008, for example, Washington provided $983 billion US in stimulus spending but received little in the way of faster trains or better infrastructure, according to figures tabulated by Graham Allison, a Harvard University professor and former senior U.S. government adviser in his book Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap?
China, in contrast, used its stimulus to build a network of high-speed trains and other major projects, Aillson noted.
To create tangible, long-term benefits and get people back to work, here are five stimulus projects engineers, clean energy advocates and other experts say should be launched.
Electric vehicle charging stations
Transportation accounts for 25 per cent Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions, according to government data.
Many consumers are keen to transition to electric vehicles — but who wants to own a car you can’t drive on a long-distance road trip due to a lack of charging stations on major highways?
“It’s a chicken-and-egg situation,” Kasun Hewage, a professor of engineering at the University of British Columbia, said in an interview. “People are not buying electric cars because they’re worried about the infrastructure.”
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The government has announced $130 million in funding, over five years ending in 2024, to develop a national recharging network.
But that alone won’t create enough charging stations to allow someone to drive an electric car from coast to coast, Hewage said, and the private sector is currently apprehensive about putting up the additional cash for installation.
Bruce MacKay, a managing director of Hatch, a Mississauga, Ont.-based engineering firm, said current programs for charging stations could be rolled out more quickly if subsidies for electric cars were reintroduced by provinces like Ontario, and taxes on gasoline were increased.
“A standardized, major roll-out of electric charging stations … would accelerate the conversion of the vehicle fleet to electric,” McKay said.
Building a network to cover 25 per cent, 50 per cent and 100 per cent of the country would cost roughly $1 billion, $2 billion and $5 billion, respectively, said Hewage.
Cost: About $5 billion for electric charging stations to cover the whole country, Hewage said.
A fast-charging electric vehicle station is seen in Dartmouth, N.S., in 2017. (Andrew Vaughan/The Canadian Press)
Improved water management
Climate change is expected to exacerbate flooding across Canada, and current water infrastructure — especially in big cities like Toronto and Montreal – isn’t ready for the additional pressures.
“Canada’s wastewater management system has a $50 billion deficit,” said Rehan Sadiq, a professor of civil engineering at the University of British Columbia. “It’s a major piece of green infrastructure from the perspective of climate resilience and Canadians’ well being.”
Fixing and improving aging pipe, sewage systems and treatment facilities would be a great way to create jobs and meet environmental targets, he added.
Water infrastructure is normally owned by municipal governments, but they often don’t have the money needed for the upgrades, Sadiq said.
The federal government has been spending some money on improving the system, he said, but the financing could use an additional shot in the arm. Provinces and municipalities might also pledge new funds if the federal government got the ball rolling, he said.
Cost: $3 billion initially from the federal government, Sadiq estimated.
Items like this building were surrounded or covered by water as the St. John River flooded in Fredericton in 2017. Experts project flooding will worsen in much of the country as climate change intensifies. (Stephen MacGillivray/The Canadian Press)
Energy efficient homes
Provinces are currently spending about $1 billion annually on subsidies and other programs to make homes more energy efficient, according to calculations from Efficiency Canada, an Ottawa-based advocacy organization.
For that funding, about 0.6 per cent of buildings in Canada can be retrofitted annually, said Brendan Haley, the group’s policy director.
“That could be ramped up significantly,” he said in an interview. He said doing so wouldn’t create new bureaucracy, as the provincial programs, assessment criteria and disbursement plans for subsidies or loans to homeowners already exist.
Energy consumption for homes and buildings accounts for 17 per cent of Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions, according to government data.
The total cost of retrofitting every building in Canada by 2050, a necessary shift in order to meet climate change commitments, would be about $300 billion, Haley said.
Energy-saving retrofits for most houses include techniques such: installing better insulation, improving windows to reduce heat loss, installing a zero carbon heating system, and in some cases, solar panels.
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As a job creation strategy, retrofitting old buildings is especially effective, Haley said because about 60 per cent of the cost of a retrofit is spent on labour.
With residential construction expected to drop by about one-third this year compared to 2019 due to the pandemic, keeping construction workers employed with retrofits makes economic sense, Hewage said.
“Go small” costs: $11 billion in seed capital upfront for a green infrastructure bank, $500 million for training new workers.
“Go big” costs: $300 billion over the next 15 years, Haley said.
Harbour Grace, N.L., town engineer Pat Hearn stands on an aging bridge in 2017. Many of Canada’s bridges need urgent repairs, engineers said. (Paul Daly/The Canadian Press)
Rebuild bridges, roads and tunnels
Broadly, Canada’s infrastructure deficit is more than $150 billion, according to the Canadian Federation of Municipalities, a coalition of city governments.
Following the Second World War through the 1950s, Canada was spending roughly three per cent of the GDP on infrastructure, compared to about 0.4 per cent today, said UBC’s Sadiq.
This lack of spending means the quality of key transportation links is deteriorating, causing safety fears and increased travel times, among other problems.
For bridges, tunnels and roads, the infrastructure deficit is about $28 billion, said Shahria Alam, an associate professor of engineering at UBC.
Forty per cent of bridges and roads are not in good condition and about 10,000 bridges need immediate attention, he added.
Cost: An initial investment of about $3 billion from the federal government, Alam said.
An abandoned asbestos mine is shown in Thetford Mines, Que., in 2017. (Lia Levesque/The Canadian Press)
Clean up old mines, wells
The federal government recently announced $1.7 billion to help clean up orphaned and abandoned oil and gas wells in Western Canada.
A similar program should be launched for abandoned mines, said Sandro Perruzza, CEO of the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers.
In Ontario alone, there are some 5,000 known abandoned mines, closed prior to 1991, which have no current ownership, he said.
“These abandoned sites are an enormous environmental concern, such as ground water contamination of leachate, and pose additional health and safety risks to surrounding communities,” Perruzza said in an interview.
Taking on the issue would improve land and water quality, especially in northern and rural communities, and would employ thousands of people, he added.
Cost: In Ontario alone, at least $2.59 billion, Peruzza said.
A woman wearing a pandemic mask talks on her phone in Toronto on April 28. (Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press)
Almost seven years since news broke of an alleged conspiracy to fix the price of packaged bread across Canada, the saga isn’t over: the Competition Bureau continues to investigate the companies that may have been involved, and two class-action lawsuits continue to work their way through the courts.
Here’s a timeline of key events in the bread price-fixing case.
Oct. 31, 2017: The Competition Bureau says it’s investigating allegations of bread price-fixing and that it was granted search warrants in the case. Several grocers confirm they are co-operating in the probe.
Dec. 19, 2017: Loblaw and George Weston say they participated in an “industry-wide price-fixing arrangement” to raise the price of packaged bread. The companies say they have been co-operating in the Competition Bureau’s investigation since March 2015, when they self-reported to the bureau upon discovering anti-competitive behaviour, and are receiving immunity from prosecution. They announce they are offering $25 gift cards to customers amid the ongoing investigation into alleged bread price-fixing.
Jan. 31, 2018: In court documents, the Competition Bureau says at least $1.50 was added to the price of a loaf of bread between about 2001 and 2016.
Dec. 20, 2019: A class-action lawsuit in a Quebec court against multiple grocers and food companies is certified against a number of companies allegedly involved in bread price-fixing, including Loblaw, George Weston, Metro, Sobeys, Walmart Canada, Canada Bread and Giant Tiger (which have all denied involvement, except for Loblaw and George Weston, which later settled with the plaintiffs).
Dec. 31, 2021: A class-action lawsuit in an Ontario court covering all Canadian residents except those in Quebec who bought packaged bread from a company named in the suit is certified against roughly the same group of companies.
June 21, 2023: Bakery giant Canada Bread Co. is fined $50 million after pleading guilty to four counts of price-fixing under the Competition Act as part of the Competition Bureau’s ongoing investigation.
Oct. 25 2023: Canada Bread files a statement of defence in the Ontario class action denying participating in the alleged conspiracy and saying any anti-competitive behaviour it participated in was at the direction and to the benefit of its then-majority owner Maple Leaf Foods, which is not a defendant in the case (neither is its current owner Grupo Bimbo). Maple Leaf calls Canada Bread’s accusations “baseless.”
Dec. 20, 2023: Metro files new documents in the Ontario class action accusing Loblaw and its parent company George Weston of conspiring to implicate it in the alleged scheme, denying involvement. Sobeys has made a similar claim. The two companies deny the allegations.
July 25, 2024: Loblaw and George Weston say they agreed to pay a combined $500 million to settle both the Ontario and Quebec class-action lawsuits. Loblaw’s share of the settlement includes a $96-million credit for the gift cards it gave out years earlier.
Sept. 12, 2024: Canada Bread files new documents in Ontario court as part of the class action, claiming Maple Leaf used it as a “shield” to avoid liability in the alleged scheme. Maple Leaf was a majority shareholder of Canada Bread until 2014, and the company claims it’s liable for any price-fixing activity. Maple Leaf refutes the claims.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 19, 2024.
Companies in this story: (TSX:L, TSX:MFI, TSX:MRU, TSX:EMP.A, TSX:WN)
TORONTO – Canada’s main stock index was up more than 250 points in late-morning trading, led by strength in the base metal and technology sectors, while U.S. stock markets also charged higher.
The S&P/TSX composite index was up 254.62 points at 23,847.22.
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 432.77 points at 41,935.87. The S&P 500 index was up 96.38 points at 5,714.64, while the Nasdaq composite was up 486.12 points at 18,059.42.
The Canadian dollar traded for 73.68 cents US compared with 73.58 cents US on Thursday.
The November crude oil contract was up 89 cents at US$70.77 per barrel and the October natural gas contract was down a penny at US2.27 per mmBTU.
The December gold contract was up US$9.40 at US$2,608.00 an ounce and the December copper contract was up four cents at US$4.33 a pound.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 19, 2024.
VANCOUVER – Supervised injection sites are saving the lives of drug users everyday, but the same support is not being offered to people who inhale illicit drugs, the head of the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS says.
Dr. Julio Montaner said the construction of Vancouver’s first indoor supervised site for people who inhale drugs comes as the percentage of people who die from smoking drugs continues to climb.
The location in the Downtown Eastside at the Hope to Health Research and Innovation Centre was unveiled Wednesday after construction was complete, and Montaner said people could start using the specialized rooms in a matter of weeks after final approvals from the city and federal government.
“If we don’t create mechanisms for these individuals to be able to use safely and engage with the medical system, and generate points of entry into the medical system, we will never be able to solve the problem,” he said.
“Now, I’m not here to tell you that we will fix it tomorrow, but denying it or ignoring it, or throw it under the bus, or under the carpet is no way to fix it, so we need to take proactive action.”
Nearly two-thirds of overdose deaths in British Columbia in 2023 came after smoking illicit drugs, yet only 40 per cent of supervised consumption sites in the province offer a safe place to smoke, often outdoors, in a tent.
The centre has been running a supervised injection site for years which sees more than a thousand people monthly and last month resuscitated five people who were overdosing.
The new facilities offer indoor, individual, negative-pressure rooms that allow fresh air to circulate and can clear out smoke in 30 to 60 seconds while users are monitored by trained nurses.
Advocates calling for more supervised inhalation sites have previously said the rules for setting up sites are overly complicated at a time when the province is facing an overdose crisis.
More than 15,000 people have died of overdoses since the public health emergency was declared in B.C. in April 2016.
Kate Salters, a senior researcher at the centre, said they worked with mechanical and chemical engineers to make sure the site is up to code and abidies by the highest standard of occupational health and safety.
“This is just another tool in our tool box to make sure that we’re offering life-saving services to those who are using drugs,” she said.
Montaner acknowledged the process to get the site up and running took “an inordinate amount of time,” but said the centre worked hard to follow all regulations.
“We feel that doing this right, with appropriate scientific background, in a medically supervised environment, etc, etc, allows us to derive the data that ultimately will be sufficiently convincing for not just our leaders, but also the leaders across the country and across the world, to embrace the strategies that we are trying to develop.” he said.
Montaner said building the facility was possible thanks to a single $4-million donation from a longtime supporter.
Construction finished with less than a week before the launch of the next provincial election campaign and within a year of the next federal election.
Montaner said he is concerned about “some of the things that have been said publicly by some of the political leaders in the province and in the country.”
“We want to bring awareness to the people that this is a serious undertaking. This is a very massive investment, and we need to protect it for the benefit of people who are unfortunately drug dependent.” he said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 18, 2024.
