Hard truths

There is a new bridge in Demorestville. It is a handsome piece of infrastructure. Smooth, supportive and flat. Smooth, that is, until it rejoins County Road 14. I hadn’t noticed how badly the road between Demorestville and Crofton had deteriorated until I crossed over the smooth, flat surface of the Demorestville bridge. Some places provide caution signs: Slow for bridge. In Prince Edward County we need signs that warn: Slow for road.

I vowed that after the election I would turn our coverage away from Shire Hall for a few weeks—a bit of a break for us all. And mostly, we will do that. But I am suspending this vow, on page six for this week and next, to examine two extremely difficult files. Difficult because, despite widespread understanding of the problem, it is less clear, I fear, that solutions will be found easily. Working through these issues will be painful and frustrating— ultimately, the outcome may depend largely on outside forces.

Making matters worse, confusion and misinformation was scattered liberally around the County during the campaign. On both files, it is crucial that every ratepayer—and our new council—is informed about the hard choices that lie ahead.

Truth one: We can’t afford our roads.

Just to maintain our road and bridge network at its current state we must spend about $40 million per year. Every year. Indexed to inflation. We currently spend about $11 million. We are going backwards every day. That is why the condition of Melville, Wilson, Bethel, Miller and dozens of other roads in the County are deteriorating. Our roads will get worse.

The hard truth is, there is little we—or our new council—can do. Slow and steady investment won’t do it. The problem is too big. We can neither raise enough money in property taxes, nor borrow enough to fix all our roads and maintain them adequately. The best we do is to manage the decay in an orderly and reasonable manner.

So how did this happen? Amalgamation was a colossally destructive force, particularly for rural communities with big geography and small populations.

In the massive swapping of responsibilities that occurred during this dark period, County ratepayers were suddenly burdened with the care and maintenance of roads that had belonged to the province, including Loyalist Parkway and Highway 49. Overnight, provincial roads became municipal burdens. Nobody asked the basic question: could we afford to do this?

Almost immediately, it became apparent, even at Queen’s Park, that we could not. We have too many roads and too few people.

But rather than unravel a bad policy, Queen’s Park sent money. It seemed every few months, MPP Leona Dombrowsky was in the County with a cheque for this road or that. Her government also rolled out an alphabet soup of ever-more elaborate funding mechanisms (CRF, OMPF) to fix the mistake of amalgamation.

That money has now mostly dried up. The province has made a mess of its own finances. Its debt relative to gross domestic product is higher than any other province except Quebec. And despite a precarious financial position, the Wynne government continues to dig the current $300 billion debt hole deeper by $10 billion each year.

Now the cheques have stopped coming. The funding taps are being turned off. Even long standing programs used to fix roads that link the last few provincial roadways in the County have been eliminated.

There is no more money.

The next council will need all the courage and wisdom it can muster. It begins with being honest with County residents about what can and can’t be done.

The election campaign is over. The noise has faded. The balloons have shrivelled or floated away. The party is over. It is time to face some sobering truths.

rick@wellingtontimes.ca