One of the more enjoyable parts of my work routine over the past year has been the opportunity to pull together the weekly blog article for the Let’s TOC website.
So, it is with some sadness that I am posting my last entry. The original intention of theLet’s TOC initiative was to pull together members of Canada’s infrastructure community into a conversation over innovation in infrastructure leading up to theNational Infrastructure Summit held last month in Regina. With the Summit now over, the Let’s TOC initiative is winding down.
While the site will no longer be active, all of the content—articles, ideas, suggestions, commentary, responses—will be archived and housed at the Communities of Tomorrow website, shared through the Canada West Foundation website and, hopefully, other sites as well. None of the ideas will evaporate into cyberspace.
In this blog, I want to review some of the highlights of the initiative and what we were able to accomplish. I think we did succeed in highlighting some of the more innovative approaches gathering steam across western Canada, and in other places of the country as well. Let’s TOC served as a great vehicle to get a group of folks together to consider and spread the news of innovative approaches to solving our infrastructure challenges. The weekly blog articles were sent out to some 2,000 subscribers each week and there was some really good chatter through social media.
At the National Infrastructure Summit, I was engaged more than a few times by people who were following the site and reading with interest the material that was being produced and discussed. It was also a great opportunity to meet up with many of our contributors, including people like Chris Lorenc, Charlie Clark, Gord Hume, and Clare Kirkland. The response to the transformative potential of infrastructure as seen through the “Field of Dreams” series was particularly positive. Indeed, it is a great good-news infrastructure story. There are, of course, many other good things happening right across the West.
The project established some really good links with other work that I have been engaged in, particularly around ideas related to municipal tax reform such as the “penny tax” idea and water issues in western Canada. It was interesting to catalogue some of the small but creative systems that are being developed right here in the West to tackle water concerns.
There most certainly is a connection between infrastructure and environmental protection and enhancement. I think a lot of people lose sight of that connection, but it is a vital one. Infrastructure is about accommodating growing populations, reinvesting in aging systems and investing in the future of the nation’s economy. As Dylan Jones, Canada West Foundation’s President and CEO, notes, “Canada needs to strike the right balance between spending on our current needs and investing in our future. When it comes to investment, we need to increase the development of infrastructure vital to our future prosperity and we need to be more innovative in how we finance and actually construct modern infrastructure.”
There are also important environmental connections as well. Smoother roads mean less congestion and pollution and better wastewater treatment means healthier aquatic systems. Water recycling offers opportunities to enhance the productivity of water use while making gains in conservation.
For me, one of the greatest take-aways has been a better understanding and appreciation for the multitude of opportunities and the potential afforded by a stronger commitment to new, fresh and creative approaches in addressing our nation’s infrastructure. The potential for innovation cuts a very wide swath, touching on everything from incorporating new technologies into our existing systems, new approaches to renewing and rehabilitating those systems and new methods of financing and funding.
While the opportunities are significant, innovation does not come easy. It entails risk.
When meeting with officials involved with designing the new federal Long-Term Infrastructure Plan (LTIP), I referred to the Let’s TOC initiative and emphasized the benefits that would flow from a specific federal commitment to incenting innovation. If a block of funding was made available contingent on new technologies, new systems, new approaches, or unique financing and funding, innovation would get a real shot in the arm. Canada’s municipalities and infrastructure providers are a creative bunch and some financial incentives would help unleash some of that creativity.
In closing, I’d like to include a comment from John Lee, President and CEO at Communities of Tomorrow: “This project has been a tremendous game-changer in terms of elevating the depth of discussion around the need for innovation in infrastructure. We need to keep doing things like Let’s TOC and the National Infrastructure Summit to keep the conversation going. Ultimately, we must collaborate across all kinds of boundaries to execute new and smarter solutions for our infrastructure challenges.”
It has been a pleasure writing for this initiative and I thank Communities of Tomorrow for the opportunity, and Ann Pham for making sure my weekly deadlines were met. As it turns out, I have five speaking engagements booked for October and November on this topic. I certainly won’t stop “TOC’n” about infrastructure and the need for new and innovative approaches.
– By Casey Vander Ploeg, Senior Policy Analyst