I'll give a quick answer.
I agree with you. I think all three levels do need to work together.
I spent 30 years in the private sector. I was absolutely stunned with how little money our city has, even though we're one of the few cities in Canada that has no debt. We issued our first-ever debt this year. I started in the basement at city hall. I went to shipping and receiving. I worked my way right through every department. I asked to see their books and asked them what they did. They are lean and mean and deliver services in a very cost-effective way. Then I wondered what the problem was.
To me the problem is that municipalities own 65% of the infrastructure and we get 9¢ on the dollar. That is absolutely the number one problem. I wonder if anybody in this room can tell me how that math works. How can you maintain, build, and replace 65% of the infrastructure in the country when you've only got 9¢ on the dollar? It absolutely makes no sense.
I agree with you. I think all three levels need to sit down. We really need to understand that what makes Canada successful, and what will make Canada successful in the future, is how vibrant our cities are and how great our infrastructure is.
A friend of mine is doing some jobs in China right now. He's building precincts in China. This is funny. They built 40 kilometres of LRT in two years. How in the heck did they do that? They had no environmental assessment. He was the lead architect. He asked the Chinese fellows about environmental assessments, and they asked him what he meant. He told them they are done to find out whether it's going to be positive or negative, and his Chinese counterpart looked at him and said that it's going to be positive because it's public transit.
There are a lot of ways we can find efficiencies at all three levels and help each other, I'm quite sure.