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Comment by bluefirebrand | Hacker News Reader

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Canada is not an infrastructure “joke.” It is a country with some world-class delivery organizations operating inside a political system that too often destroys continuity. Relative to the G7, that makes it mediocre and volatile, not uniquely incompetent. And, in nuclear specifically, probably no worse positioned than its peers, though the ten-reactor rhetoric is substantially more ambitious than the underlying commitments at this time... (not surprising - it's a politician making an announcement, which is something of a prerequisite for making a "real plan" anyways).

As a Canadian, I think Canada’s primary hurdle is not a lack of engineering competence, but rather political volatility. Projects like Calgary’s Green Line often suffer from shifting scopes, fragmented authority, and delayed funding. Conversely, the recent Darlington nuclear plant refurbishment finished early and under budget. This proves that Canada can successfully execute megaprojects when planning is front-loaded and standardized.

Another comment I'd make is that the Carney government is only just a bit more than one year old. They're writing a whole lot of new policy. Will they succeed more than past governments? Who knows. But, at least they're spending the majority of their political capital trying to build stuff.

Which are these "world-class delivery organizations" and are they the exception or the rule?

We can acknowledge that political volatility is a main cause but it's not some exogenous factor. It's inherent to the federal structure of the country and it hamstrings trying to build social goods, whether that's transit or healthcare infrastructure.

There is also nowhere near a culture of developing and trusting institutional planning expertise. Infrastructure is done on a pork-barrel basis of which promises will get who elected and create which jobs and allocate which contracts. Or who complains the loudest about the design of any given plan.

Canada's 20th century social system was also based on maintaining social stability through mass property ownership, which is now breaking down as unrestrained property speculation is displacing any kind of productive investments (while also ending the possibility of that mass property ownership in the near future).

Sorry to bring the negativity but I feel as a whole that Canadians are much too tolerant of institutional dysfunction (in the manner of the classic "Canadian nice") and think our society is far more advanced than it actually is. It's a completely complacent and naive culture that is quickly being left in the dust by more functional systems.

You can have all the technical competence in the world, but if those competent people are not allowed to build things your society simply is inept at building stuff in the end. It's a choice society has made.

It's certainly not unique to Canada though. The US and other western societies have made similar choices. Much less risky to employ a lot of expensive people to come up with reasons to not build stuff vs. taking risks and upsetting people by building.

Good points. I would refine my comment: Canada has isolated examples of excellent megaproject execution, but lacks a system that reproduces that performance reliably. The nuclear announcement is credible only insofar as Canada can replicate the OPG/Bruce fleet-program model—stable authority and funding, standardized designs, repeat teams and accumulated learning—rather than its usual election-cycle, one-off megaproject model.

I dearly hope that we're not going to see that model again, but maybe that's likely.

>Canada is not an infrastructure “joke.” It is a country with some world-class delivery organizations operating inside a political system that too often destroys continuity.

>As a Canadian, I think Canada’s primary hurdle is not a lack of engineering competence, but rather political volatility.

>Another comment I'd make is that the Carney government is only just a bit more than one year old.

I know that Liberals since early 2025 have done their best to pretend that Justin Trudeau never existed, but one would think by your words that the Carney regime succeeded one of another party, as opposed to the Liberals in 2025 forming their fourth consecutive federal government, after 2021, 2019, and 2015.

> As a Canadian, I think Canada’s primary hurdle is not a lack of engineering competence, but rather political volatility

I never said it was a problem of engineering competence, you read that into my statement

Political volatility getting projects delayed and cancelled is why we're a joke

You're right: you didn’t claim a lack of engineering competence. I introduced that distinction. Sorry. If the question is whether the Canadian society can build reliably, then governance and political instability count as part of its overall competence, not as external excuses.

I would agree with you that political volatility exists and stifles an otherwise decent country. It's very frustrating.

Federal funding for the green line was announced in 2015, and IIRC they originally predicted a 2026 opening date for branches covering the north and south of the city - street running in the north central part and a bit in Seton, a short tunnel downtown, and dedicated ROW elsewhere. This was back when planners were still really into streetcars/trams. The funding mix was supposed to be $1.5 billion each from the city, province and feds.

The city sat on their hands for years, perfecting and re-routing the downtown part[1]. Eventually, the plan was shortened to 16 Ave N to Shepard with a long tunnel downtown. The city ordered $100s of millions of low-floor trains, incompatible with the existing ones, necessitating building a new maintenance facility. The cost at this point was $5.something billion.

Then, in 2020, the provincial government put a "pause" on the project. When it came back to life, costs had increased dramatically, and the city came out with a modified plan the (the $6.8 billion stub train from downtown to Lynnwood). The province then threatened to pull their part of the funding, and commissioned a new downtown segment plan that advocated for elevated downtown, and nothing north of there.

Today? We are building the original truncated south phase to Shepard (by 2031!), but not the downtown part. The city is still debating what's going to happen downtown, dismissing elevated. They are hearing from office building and parking lot owners who are worried about its effect on property values, but I think they are also rejecting any ideas from the province on principle. About the only positive thing I can say is that the project is tangibly under construction now, with actual bridges over roadways done or nearly complete.

I blame the city (both planners and elected officials) and the province in that order, but mostly the city.

[1] One positive thing to come from that is the routing in Inglewood/Ramsay and 26 Ave SE that avoids taking down heritage buildings and destroying a vital community corridor.

> Today? We are building the original truncated south phase to Shepard (by 2031!),

I know, I live by the Shepard station location by the Canadian Tire. Since 2020 they managed to put up a nice sign

> We are building the original truncated south phase to Shepard (by 2031!)

Yeah. 16 years after the federal funding was announced

We have to do better than this. :/

> I blame the city (both planners and elected officials) and the province in that order, but mostly the city

Me too don't worry

unfortunately yes. Too much bullshits jobs (to suck up funds mostly and critize every aspects of non existant projects) and not enough people to take risks and do the job.

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