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Have We Lost the Ability to Build Infrastructure?

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The Audit

 

The Empire Statue Building was, for its time, monumental. The New York landmark may not be such a big deal these days, but its construction history in often invoked as a sign that we’ve lost the capacity to do big stuff.

After all, the iconic skyscraper’s builders brought the project to completion $19 million under budget, 12 days ahead of schedule, and in just over a year.

At the height of the depression.

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By contrast, California’s High-Speed Rail project – designed to ultimately link San Diego with Sacramento – was authorized in 2008. Construction on Phase 1 didn’t being until 2015. As of now, $11.2 billion has been spent without a single train having left a single station. The total budget was originally in the $33-40 billion range, although it’s now anticipated to run past $128 billion. And no one’s expecting project completion any time in the next decade.

Closer to home, we can compare the original 7.4 kilometer Yonge Line of Toronto’s subway system (fully-functional by 1954 after just five years’ work) with its grandson, the Eglinton Crosstown LRT. The Eglinton line was announced in 2007, work began in 2011 and, 13 years later, completion is still nowhere in sight. Since I live just a few blocks from what might one day become an LRT station, I’ll be sure to let you know if anything changes.

In the grand scheme of things, North America might not even have it so bad. Lately, everyone (and by “everyone” I mean everyone besides my wife, children, or even a single person I have ever met) has been buzzing about a 17,000-word article called “Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated”. I strongly encourage you to read the whole thing have ChatGPT summarize it for you.

The main takeaway from Foundations is that the UK’s excessive regulations, high energy and labour costs, bureaucratic delays, and outdated tax incentives led to an application process requiring 360,000 pages and nearly £300 million for the Lower Thames Crossing project before any work was even approved!

The rot that lies behind Britain’s paralysis has been building since the 1990’s, through both Conservative and Labour governments.

But things might not be so bad here at home. For one thing, we probably don’t have a regulatory bureaucracy that’s quite so extreme as Britain’s. I’m aware of nothing in Canada that’s analogous to the UK’s “nutrient neutrality” requirements.

And while our energy costs are certainly not cheap, they’re a whole lot better here than in the UK. Commercial electricity, for instance, costs an average of USD 0.117 per kWh in Canada, far below the USD 0.485 per kWh they’re paying in the UK. And the cost of natural gas for home heating in Canada (USD 0.038 per kWh) isn’t even close to what they shell out across the pond (USD 0.092 per kWh).

Which might at least partially explain why, despite all the delays, cost overruns, and unexpected service failures involved, some major infrastructure projects have reached a (broadly) happy conclusion.

For every expensive failure (like the Eglinton Crosstown LRT or the Ottawa Confederation Line), there have also been successes (like Confederation Bridge and Vancouver’s Canada Line). Things are far from perfect, but it’s not all doom and gloom either.

The Foundations article ends on a positive note:

We believe that Britain can enjoy such a renewal once more. To do so, it need simply remove the barriers that stop the private sector from doing what it already wants to do: build homes, bridges, tunnels, roads, trams, railways, nuclear power plants, grid connections, prisons, aqueducts, reservoirs, and more.

Removing barriers. Or even better, resisting the erection of new barriers before they’re in place. We can always hope.

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Taxpayers release Naughty and Nice List

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From the Canadian Taxpayers Federation

By Franco Terrazzano 

CBC President and CEO Catherine Tait tops the Taxpayer Naughty List for dishing out executive bonuses  that cost more than the average Canadian worker makes in a year.

“Santa doesn’t like it when girls and boys are greedy, and forcing struggling taxpayers to pay for Santa-sized executive bonuses is as greedy as it gets,” said Franco Terrazzano, CTF Federal Director. “And Canadian diplomats are on the Naughty List too because Santa likes eggnog as much as the next guy, but even he knows Global Affairs Canada is sipping on a little too much Christmas spirit.

“For billing taxpayers $51,000 a month on booze, Global Affairs Canada bureaucrats find themselves on Santa’s Naughty List.”

Ontario Premier Doug Ford made the Taxpayer Naughty List for extending political welfare after promising to scrap it. And for breaking his promise to cap property tax increases, Winnipeg Mayor Scott Gillingham is also on the Naughty List.

For resigning over wasteful spending and saving taxpayers’ money in the process, former Kensington mayor Rowan Caseley tops the Taxpayer Nice List. Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Andrew Furey also made the Nice List for cutting gas taxes and fighting the federal carbon tax.

“Santa is getting hammered by carbon tax bills on his reindeer barn, so Prime Minister Justin Trudeau lands on the Naughty List for making everything more expensive with his carbon tax,” said Kris Sims, CTF Alberta Director. “Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe made Santa’s good books for taking action against Trudeau’s carbon tax.”

You can find the entire 2024 Taxpayer Naughty and Nice List here.

Taxpayer Naughty List:

  • CBC President & CEO Catherine Tait
  • Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
  • Ontario Premier Doug Ford
  • Global Affairs Canada
  • Winnipeg Mayor Scott Gillingham
  • The entire federal bureaucracy

Taxpayer Nice List:

  • Former Kensington Mayor Rowan Caseley
  • Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe
  • Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Andrew Furey
  • Alberta Premier Danielle Smith
  • Parliamentary Budget Officer Yves Giroux
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Biden announces massive new climate goals in final weeks, despite looming Trump takeover

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From LifeSiteNews

By Calvin Freiburger

Outgoing President Joe Biden announced a new climate target of reducing American carbon emissions from 61-66% over the next decade, even though President Trump would be able to undo it as soon as next month.

Outgoing President Joe Biden announced December 19 a new climate target of reducing American carbon emissions of more than 60% over the next decade, even though returning President Donald Trump would be able to undo it as soon as next month.

“Today, as the United States continues to accelerate the transition to a clean energy economy, President Biden is announcing a new climate target for the United States: a 61-66 percent reduction in 2035 from 2005 levels in economy-wide net greenhouse gas emissions,” the White House announced, the Washington Free Beacon reports. The new target will be formally submitted to the United Nations Climate Change secretariat.

“President Biden’s new 2035 climate goal is both a reflection of what we’ve already accomplished,” Biden climate adviser John Podesta added, “and what we believe the United States can and should achieve in the future.”

The announcement may be little more than a symbolic gesture in the end, however, as Trump is widely expected to withdraw the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement upon resuming office in January, in the process voiding related climate obligations.

Trump formally pulled out of the Paris accords in August 2017, the first year of his first term, with then-U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley stating that the administration would be “open to re-engaging in the Paris Agreement if the United States can identify terms that are more favorable to it, its business, its workers, its people, and its taxpayers.”

Such terms were never reached, however, leaving America out until Biden re-committed the nation to the Paris Agreement on the first day of his presidency, obligating U.S. policy to new economic regulations to cut carbon emissions.

In June, the Trump campaign confirmed Trump’s intentions to withdraw from Paris again. At the time, Trump’s team was reportedly mulling a number of non-finalized drafts of executive orders to do so.

Left-wing consternation on the matter is based on certitude in “anthropogenic global warming” (AGW) or “climate change,” the thesis that human activity, rather than natural phenomena, is primarily responsible for Earth’s changing climate and that such trends pose a danger to the planet in the form of rising sea levels and weather instability.

Activists have long claimed there is a “97 percent scientific consensus” in favor of AGW, but that number comes from a distortion of an overview of 11,944 papers from peer-reviewed journals, 66.4 percent of which expressed no opinion on the question; in fact, many of the authors identified with the AGW “consensus” later spoke out to say their positions had been misrepresented.

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