Canada’s newly released federal budget ramps up spending on affordable housing and other “social infrastructure” over the next five years while pushing off to later years hundreds of millions in dollars for bigger-ticket transportation projects, a new budget analysis shows. The Liberal government reaffirms its 2016 commitment to spend $60 billion in new infrastructure over the next decade but adds little detail on where the money will actually go or how its widely touted infrastructure bank will participate in funding.
The allocation for social infrastructure remains steady at $16.3 billion, but the budget would shift forward into the next five years an added $971 million for new schools, hospitals and affordable housing, says a budget analysis by Toronto-based National Bank Financial. But $624 million in funding for big public transportation projects would shift to the post-2022 five-year time period, says Maxim Sytchev, the firm’s managing director and AEC-sector analyst.