Calgary mayor says Montreal main break further proves need for funds to deal with aging infrastructure

Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek says Montreal's massive main break on Friday is another example of municipalities across Canada needing additional federal and provincial funding to fix aging water infrastructure.

"My thoughts are with the people of Montreal after this morning's major water main break. Calgarians know all too well what it's like to have to deal with the sudden failure of water infrastructure," Gondek said in a written statement to CTV News.

"Montreal joins cities like Calgary and Quebec City as clear examples of the need for increased investment from all orders of government in infrastructure that isn't always in plain view."

The main broke around 6 a.m. on René-Lévesque Boulevard at De Lorimier Avenue, causing water to spill into the streets.

About a half hour later, a geyser about 20 metres high had erupted.

Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante told reporters it would likely take hours to repair the pipe, which is more than two metres wide.

The main supplies water to the city's east end.

The cause of the break is currently unknown.

A 2019 report card compiled by engineering, construction and municipality associations found 30 per cent of water infrastructure in Canada is in fair, poor or very poor condition.

The report notes the majority of infrastructure relied upon by Canadians is more than 20 years old.

Other figures from Statistics Canada in 2022 reported a significant portion of linear water infrastructure was over 50 years old in 2020.

The government agency also found close to one-fifth of water, sewer and stormwater pipes were reaching the end of their useful life.

It also found 12 per cent of the length of pipes in Canada were in "unknown condition" in 2020.

"Water teams from other major cities reached out to the City of Calgary's Water team after our feeder main unexpectedly failed. Our teams here in Calgary have been responding to questions and sharing their learnings," Gondek said.

Tricia Stadnyk, Canada Research Chair in hydrologic modelling and a civil engineering professor at the University of Calgary, says the break in Calgary is similar to Montreal's.

"This particular pipe and where the break happened in Montreal is from a pipe that was actually only built in 1985, so it's not that old and in fact, it's actually younger than Calgary's feeder main," Stadnyk said.

"But from a report in 2019 that looked at the average age of failure on these types of feeders ... they actually found that the average age of failure was between 40 and 50 years."

Stadnyk says some studies from Canadian infrastructure reports show water infrastructure is currently a greater-than-$2-billion problem in Canada alone.

"So it's very difficult to convince taxpayers to invest this kind of money, like Montreal back in 2017 estimated the cost of water infrastructure probably at about $513 million in 2018 but that estimate was revised to 3.5 billion," Stadnyk said.

Rebecca Dziedzic, assistant professor of building, civil, and environmental engineering at Concordia University, says the major costs have many municipalities paying extra attention and taking action ahead of time.

"We have been seeing in some cities across Canada the number of breaks going down, so if proper maintenance is done, if they're doing their planning, it's not like the breaks will just skyrocket," Dziedzic said.

“As long as we're doing the preventative work, they can definitely go down and everything can be under control."

The Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) has released key recommendations for a new Municipal Growth Framework.

Geoff Stewart, FCM president, says many cities are struggling to maintain roads, bridges and transit services as it is, but water and wastewater systems are also going under the radar.

"Infrastructure across this country is at a critical stage right now and we're working with a funding formula that dates basically back to Confederation, yet we're dealing with 2024 issues," he said.

“Municipalities own approximately 60 per cent of the infrastructure nationwide and yet we get roughly eight to 10 cents of every tax dollar that's collected, which today will not meet up with the demand that we have."

FCM is now calling on federal, provincial and territorial governments to modernize municipal funding through a number of recommendations including:

• Tying federal transfers to population and economic growth by linking them to Canada's GDP;
• Increasing direct annual transfers to municipalities by $2.6 billion, bringing the total to $5 billion when paired with the existing Canada Community-Building Fund; and
• Broadening eligible expenses under federal transfers to include operating costs as well as capital costs (infrastructure), enabling municipalities to direct funding towards local priorities that enable population growth and economic development.