Long-term plan for Ontario’s infrastructure maps out projects, buildings, assets
The plan pledges to take climate change into better account, and promises high-speed internet improvements.

Thestar.com
Rob Ferguson
Nov. 28, 2017

Ontario will come out with a strategy to expand high-speed internet service next year and pay more heed to climate change under a new long-term plan to manage government buildings and other infrastructure.

In setting out a roadmap for the future, Infrastructure Minister Bob Chiarelli said more projects need to be environmentally sustainable and do double duty in providing benefits to communities where they are located.

That includes measures such as requiring companies building schools, roads, and bridges to provide on-the-job apprenticeship training in so-called “community-benefits” agreements.

“In an era of accelerated change and disruptive technologies, the need for resilient and substantive infrastructure with responsive and inclusive planning has never been greater,” Chiarelli said in the 160-page report issued Tuesday.

“These challenges require bold action as we design the next generation of infrastructure and shape the Ontario of tomorrow.”

Premier Kathleen Wynne’s administration is in the third year of a 13-year, $190-billion plan to expand the province’s infrastructure, including public transit, new roads, bridges, schools, hospitals and courts.

On the climate change, the government, which faces a provincial election next June 7, is proposing to reduce the environmental impact of new infrastructure by taking into account the total cost over its lifespan.

The concept is known as life-cycle assessment, and it means measuring the costs of everything from original construction to eventual retrofits and decommissioning to determine the best materials to use up front to achieve a lower-carbon design and promote environmental sustainability.

By law, Ontario must meet targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions over the coming decades, getting them down to 15 per cent below 1990 levels in 2020 and 80 per cent below 1990 levels in 2050.

To keep residents informed better of infrastructure projects near them, the government will also put an interactive map online.

The long-term plan also includes, for the first time, an inventory of all Ontario government buildings and other assets, describing their age, condition and value.

Detailed by category, the inventory found, for example, that 70 per cent of Ontario roads are in good condition, 25 per cent in fair and 5 per cent in poor condition, with an average life-span of 11 years and a collective replacement value of $50.6 billion.

The lack of high-speed internet service in remote and rural areas was cited last year by the Ontario Chamber of Commerce for holding back economic growth.

Canada’s telecom regulator, the CRTC, has also declared broadband internet a basic service, equating it to landline telephones in decades past.