Candidates need infrastructure tutorial

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 06/10/2014 (4003 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The good news in this Winnipeg civic election campaign is all of the mayoral candidates have vowed to make infrastructure their top priority.

That makes sense because, to no one’s surprise, infrastructure is the number-one issue for voters. A Winnipeg Free Press/CTV Winnipeg poll released today confirms repairing existing roads is the priority for more than six in 10 Winnipeggers.

The bad news is to differing degrees, none of the mayoral candidates is very knowledgeable about how things such as roads get built. That’s bad news because we should expect the next mayor of Winnipeg to have some advanced knowledge about how these things get done in order to ensure they are spending taxpayer money wisely.

The collective ignorance about infrastructure was on display last week at a forum sponsored by CAA Manitoba and the Association of Manitoba Municipalities, where the candidates outlined their plans for better infrastructure.

All of the challengers believed the city could be managing its infrastructure funds much better. They argued the city needed to use better materials, work longer hours and oversee contractors more closely.

Some candidates went as far as to allege the city was being ripped off by contractors, who were swapping in inferior concrete and asphalt to earn higher margins on their work, because city officials do not monitor road projects closely enough.

It’s a great tack to take at election time, in large part because it plays on the public’s impression about how road construction in particular is carried out. Unfortunately, almost everything the candidates said was untrue.

Doug Dobrowolski, president of the AMM and the reeve of the RM of Macdonald, said he was a little shocked at the lack of knowledge demonstrated by the candidates. “They were really clueless to be honest,” Dobrowolski said. “Nobody really knew how this stuff was done.”

The candidates — Judy Wasylycia-Leis, Brian Bowman, Gord Steeves, David Sanders, Robert-Falcon Ouellette, Paula Havixbeck and Michel Fillion — all seemed genuinely unaware the city specifies the exact types of concrete and asphalt, and the performance qualities of those materials, for all road projects. The city also has a team of engineers on all work sites to test the materials on a daily basis — sometimes multiple times a day — to ensure they are meeting those specifications.

To be fair, Havixbeck, a soon-to-be former councillor, did know a lot of this stuff. But even she tried to simplify the tendering process to a point where it was clear that, like the other candidates, she was a bit fuzzy on exactly how a local government manages infrastructure.

How can our mayoral candidates be so clueless about infrastructure methodology? A short seminar with some folks from the AMM, or Manitoba Heavy Construction, would have helped any of the candidates evolve from neophyte to knowledgeable layperson. It seems in the heat of a campaign, mayoral candidates believe specific information is a luxury they cannot afford.

This observation was driven home a day after the CAA/AMM forum when Steeves held a news conference to proclaim if elected mayor, he would insist all Winnipeg roads were built with “four to five feet of rock” with either concrete or asphalt on top like they do in Grand Forks, N.D.

Steeves seemed genuinely unaware both Winnipeg and Grand Forks utilize about the same depth of aggregate as a base for roads. And like Grand Forks, Winnipeg pours new concrete and asphalt roads each year.

It seems the mayoral candidates need only express their support for infrastructure; understanding the nuts and bolts of infrastructure is something that can apparently wait until after they are elected.

Take the issue of tendering. Almost all of the mayoral candidates argue a key to making progress on the infrastructure deficit is getting tenders out earlier. Right now, the city and province issue their tenders in late winter or early spring, quite close to the beginning of construction season.

While earlier tenders is a good thing, the candidates are wrong to suggest it’s only a matter of political will to get them out earlier. They forget about the design work that goes into each tender, and the fact arguably neither the city nor the province have enough engineers to oversee projects during construction season and design next year’s projects at the same time.

We do not necessarily need mayoral candidates to be engineers, but we do need them to have enough technical knowledge to make informed pledges on how to improve overall management of infrastructure.

What we don’t need are posers pretending to be engineers so they can get elected mayor.

dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca