Building Better Infrastructure

Albertans use public infrastructure each and every day. When you’re driving to work or picking up the kids from practice, you’re driving on a public road. When you take the kids to school, they’re learning in a school built by public funds. When you need life saving care, you’re receiving it in a hospital built by all Albertans, through their government. And whether you’re picking up essential goods like groceries, or clothes at the mall, almost everything we rely on - our supply chain - is delivered on public infrastructure.

Over the last eight years, through the administrations of both Premiers Rachel Notley and Jason Kenney, the Government of Alberta has spent on average over $7 billion a year on infrastructure. What projects the government prioritizes and builds in your community matters to all Albertans. We need a plan and projects that equip us for generations to come. It is those projects that will help define Alberta’s future.

How infrastructure projects are selected, and the considerations that go into those decisions, have evolved over time in Alberta and around the world. Thirty years ago, decision makers gave relatively little attention to how infrastructure would hold up in response to climate change and resulting extreme weather events. Today, ensuring that we build resilient infrastructure isn’t just a good idea, it’s a necessity. And it’s good economics. Consider that the World Economic Forum estimates that every dollar invested to build resilience into infrastructure generates four dollars of economic value.

In late October, the UCP government introduced a new piece of legislation, the Infrastructure Accountability Act, that establishes the exclusive criteria to determine which projects move forward.

We are putting forward three proposals to improve the project prioritization criteria for public infrastructure projects in Alberta. These proposals are designed with Alberta’s future in mind, and would ensure that the Government of Alberta is working in partnership to build a stronger province. 

  1. Alignment with Regional and Municipal Plans
  2. Furthering Reconciliation with Indigenous People
  3.  GHG Emissions Reductions

We encourage you to read the full report to learn more. 

 

"This proposal commits the province to acting in partnership with local governments and Indigenous communities, and making sure that future generations can enjoy a high standard of living." Thomas Dang, MLA

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Leave a Comment

John

Posted

Alberta risks falling behind many other provinces when it comes to infustructure. One of the biggest Area that we fail that is in passenger rail. For two years the UCP has refused to move on the Prairelink High Speed Rail between Edmonton and Calgary. High Speed Rail would not only spur economic development between Calgary-Red Deer-Edmonton but would also reduce GHG emissions, bring cars off the road and facilitate better transit between the two biggest cities in the province. Further more a HSR network can serve as a backbone to future rail developments.

Paula Melnyk

Posted

We desperately need a new hospital in South Edmonton. I know that the NDP had formerly planned on that but the UCP decided not to go through with it. Covid showed that the Grey Nuns hospital can't handle the large increase in population in South Edmonton. During one of the Covid surges, I passed the hospital and there were 8 ambulances waiting outside of emergency. That made my blood run cold. What if I was one of those people waiting for emergency care?

Murray Harmata

Posted

Alberta's NDP is doing the right thing by proposing that working with Alberta's municipalities in partnership be a key priority for the Government of Alberta. This will allow consensus to be built on questions around infrastructure projects instead of the government prioritizing projects that omit the ideas of important stakeholders. I propose that another prioritization criteria be to build stronger consensus by including residents of municipalities, who are also important stakeholders, in the process of deciding the prioritization of infrastructure projects. This could be done by giving mini-publics, "carefully convened, limited term gatherings of diverse citizens that make recommendations to government" (Kahane 2016), a chance to deliberate with the government and other stakeholders, and vote on which projects to prioritize. Using deliberative democracy in this way can give decision makers a sense where citizens stand, discover new points on which members of the public agree and new paths forward, build public legitimacy for action on controversial issues, and make communities and civil society organizations more willing and able to act "in concert with government (Kahane 2016). References: Kahane, D. (2016). Thinking systematically about deliberative democracy and climate change. Foundation for Democracy and Sustainable Development.

Nick

Posted

We need to not fall behind, cause with what we had this year. We need to adapt and it's needs to be done asap!