Federation of Canadian Municipalities president Karen Leibovici just finished presenting the Canadian Infrastructure Report Card, and while it’s pretty bare-bones in terms of what it addresses for now – water systems and...
Read MoreMy phone just died, so I can’t post a picture, but Mayor Pat Fiacco just finished killing time at the podium by talking about boxing, and Karen Leibovici, the president of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, has...
Read MoreI just made it in to the second day of the National Infrastructure Summit at the Delta. This is a pic from what is apparently the innovation panel and they’re talking about maintaining cement and asphalt. But I was late...
Read MoreLast year’s summit, according to the organizers, was about analyzing the scope of the infrastructure problem; estimates, including the one in the IBM Smarter Cities presentation today, range from $300 to $400 billion. For...
Read MoreWell, here we are. Right now I’m posting from the ballroom in the Delta Hotel, where Canadian Construction Association President John Schubert is discussing asset management and public-private partnerships. The language...
Read MoreThe National Infrastructure Summit is all over. The big news out of today is that there will be another summit in June of 2012 and Regina will again be hosting it. Also, Mayor Fiacco announced that he will be working with other...
Read MoreOne of the themes that seems to be emerging from the National Infrastructure Summit is that it simply won’t be possible to solve our massive, multi-billion dollar infrastructure deficit problem by finding new funding...
Read MoreI trekked over to Queensbury Centre this morning to join Paul Dechene for the second day of the National Infrastructure Summit. While Paul attended a workshop on Financing, I went to one on Citizen Engagement. We’ll have...
Read MoreThe keynote address by asset management expert, Dr Penny Burns, was pretty interesting. She apparently rewrote the second half of her speech to take account of what she’d learned and experienced at the summit so far. And...
Read MoreI attended a workshop about financing city infrastructure that was chaired by Hazel McCallion, the 89-year-old mayor of Mississauga. Afterward, I spoke to her briefly. One of the things she talked about was how the federal and...
Read MoreAfter the first talk of the morning (on innovative funding models for cities by Casey Vander Ploeg of the Canada West Foundation), the Mayor of Montreal Gérald Trembley took to the stage to subject our Mayor Fiacco to a little...
Read MoreI’m blogging from the main hall of the Infrastructure Summit. I’m out in the field. Jacking in to the ‘net. Ten years ago, I’d have looked at Future Paul and thought, golly, he’s so hi tech. Here in...
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