Infrastructure Workshop - Dr. Roger Gibbons
The former CEO of the Canada West Foundation was very forthright regarding infrastructure development and its importance to economic growth and quality of life. Fundamentally, infrastructure is about connectivity for businesses, communities, and individuals. Email with questions or comments.
·
Not as sexy as health and education
·
General infrastructure challenges and how they
are compounded by regional cooperation and government
·
First point of contact for outside investors
·
Role is to connect businesses to customers and
suppliers
·
Linking producers to market
·
Infrastructure has been contracted through being
taken off of public books: airports, rails, cell
·
Discussion on infrastructure include: health,
culture, recreation, data, education, tourism, environmental, mental health,
highways, water, sanitation, solid waste,
·
Is it still meaningful?
·
How to pay for future needs?
·
When Sydney built bridge it had 6 lanes plus
tram space and rail space underneath at a time when there were only 38 cars in
Australia
·
Current aversion debt financing leads to under
investment in infrastructure
·
Wild Rose has pay as you go for infrastructure
·
Infrastructure problem is now due to economic
expansion
·
A philosophic challenge for Saskatchewan
·
It’s a normative discussion, what we should do
·
“The Cost of Sprawl” Globe and Mail Nov 5, 2013
·
Develop own identity for urban development model
·
How do we think of our community?
·
How big it is is based on our ‘feel’ for it
·
If infrastructure is about connectivity then it
is also about knitting neighbouring communities together
·
Provincial government has role for municipal
infrastructure
·
Consider Calgary flood involving: Federal &
provincial government, First nations, other municipalities including dams,
water way diversions, revenue, and private companies
·
Municipalities looking for other actors to help
·
Infrastructure is a moral issue?
·
Regional funding is a different matter
·
Funding tools for infrastructure development is
only available for provincial and municipal governments and not regional
authorities
·
Regional authorities have no fiscal tool
·
It is easy to think regionally but not to act
regionally
·
Regions can smooth and do essential ground work
for necessary infrastructure
·
Regional cooperation to build capacity is an
appropriate way to respond to changing global economy and trends
·
Currently lots of work on flood mitigation but, are
we also ready for a drought? Is effective drought management in place?
No comments:
Post a Comment