The Association of Canadian Engineering Companies – Canada (ACEC) has written a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau with a series of recommendations to help Canada mitigate the crisis created by the COVID-19 pandemic.

In it, CEO John Gamble offers six recommendations:

Deem the planning, design, construction and operation of important infrastructure as essential services nation-wide. Consulting engineers and their construction counterparts build and maintain essential services such as transportation, water and wastewater treatment, power and civic institutions such as hospitals. All, in turn, require reliable electrical, plumbing, HVAC and IT systems.

Accelerate or re-profile some existing infrastructure commitments through the Investing in Canada Plan and other legacy programs from the later years of those programs into the next two or three years as stimulus. Doing so, says Gamble, “would inject much-needed money into the economy in the short-term with less reliance on finding ‘new money’ for stimulus.”

Use the gas tax fund to jump start the recovery while provinces and territories agree to the acceleration or re-profiling of the Investing in Canada Plan and other federal-provincial legacy programs.

Stay the course on, if not accelerate, current infrastructure projects, plans and commitments. This is especially significant given that many projects take between six months and two years to be designed. Consulting engineering firms in particular need to continue working through the crisis to ensure that they retain the capacity to deliver on projects during the recovery.

Streamline and accelerate project approvals in order to get money back into the economy as quickly as possible—as Infrastructure Canada did in response to the economic downturn in 2009. “Clear and timely decisions on projects allows for informed decision making by consulting engineering firms, contractors and the entire supply chain already under financial duress through this crisis. This will also strengthen industry’s ability to respond to immediate demands, retain capacity and to effectively contribute to the recovery.”

Develop policies to allow for a very significant amount of credit to be made available to consulting engineering and other firms that deliver critical infrastructure. “Some decrease in workload is inevitable should the health crisis continue for an extended period of time,” said Gamble. “Consequently, many firms will lose much needed capacity to deliver projects during the recovery – either through downsizing or insolvency. If governments back- stop and underwrite loans, banks and lending institutions will be in a position to allow firms to retain their expertise and remain operational.

The letter concludes by saying that infrastructure is an effective form of stimulus, as past economic challenges have proven.

“Infrastructure’s added benefit is the significant and lasting return on investment. Once delivered, infrastructure assets continue to enhance our social, economic and environmental quality of life rather than being a one-time expenditure. Further, it improves a nation’s resilience to future economic downturns and facilitates more rapid recovery.”

ACEC represents more than 400 consulting engineering firms across Canada, ranging from large global corporations to employee-owned SMEs, that offer engineering, scientific and other professional services and that are on the front lines of delivering critical infrastructure.