A recent poll conducted for the Canadian Council for Public-Private Partnerships (CCPPP) suggests that Canadians are increasingly pessimistic about the future state of the country’s infrastructure, given the country’s booming population and staggering demands for new housing.

For example, 92% of respondents said they believe the rapidly growing population will increase the demand for new and improved public infrastructure. Further, 63% of respondents said they are not confident that governments alone can cover the costs of building and maintaining new and upgraded infrastructure required to handle growth without raising taxes.

“Canadians clearly see trouble on the horizon for our country’s infrastructure,” said CCPPP’s President and CEO Lisa Mitchell. “Still suffering from the effects of inflation and its daily hits on their household budgets, they’re also open to governments taking a more pragmatic approach to this challenge. That’s why there is broad support across all regions, demographics and political parties for governments to partner with the private sector to help shoulder the load and share these financial costs and risks.”

Key findings of the survey include:

• 31% of Canadians rate the current state of publicly-owned infrastructure assets in their communities in good or excellent condition. These assets range from roads and hospitals to water/wastewater systems and community rec facilities.

• 88% are very pessimistic about Canada’s infrastructure in the near future, stating they agree it will deteriorate and require significant repairs and upgrades.

• 47% prefer government sharing the financial cost and risk of infrastructure with private companies, 24% prefer government going it alone, while 29% have no preference.

• 49% support the use of public-private partnerships to build, fund, operate and maintain public infrastructure and that number jumps to 60% when described as using a combination of government and private investment and other resources.

The results support recommendations made by CCPPP in which the organization has called on governments to make greater use of private finance via P3s to stretch scarce tax dollars further to deliver the critical infrastructure and services Canadians need.

“The survey results demonstrate Canadians strongly prefer P3s in practice. This cuts across all regions, political parties and even generations, from Gen Z to the Boomers,” said Mitchell. “This is a message our politicians, government officials, the media and the public need to hear. We cannot bridge this country’s infrastructure gap, improve the lives of Canadians or grow our economy without the public and private sectors working together to find solutions.

The survey was conducted for CCPPP by Abacus Data.