There are a number of comments I could make.
First of all, I think it's fair to say that most economists now think we have to rebalance our macroeconomic strategy and that we've reached a point where cutting interest rates further is pushing on a string. The Bank of Canada has done its job now, as central banks have around the world. It is legitimate to think about adding a bit of a nudge forward in terms of physical stimulus.
We've done a lot of work on infrastructure over the years. Canada has systematically underinvested in public infrastructure for about the last 30 years. You have to go back a long period of time. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities talks about a deficit of $175 billion across the country. That's a shockingly high number simply to maintain current urban infrastructure. We're looking at a big bill. You can't fix that overnight. It's not a one-year plan.
It has to be almost a generational plan in finding more clever ways to dedicate federal, provincial, and city resources. I guess that's one of the key pieces. We've written about having all three levels of government working in harmony together as a collective. The feds have arguably more financing capacity, but don't have the line of sight the other two levels of government do. I would say a critical piece in this is coordination among three levels of government, working with cities and provinces to try to identify not only the most important projects but also the ones that are going to give you the biggest payback over a generation.