08-20-2025, 06:56 PM
My understanding is that the 'consultancy model' so common in North America is a big part of the issue - governments have gradually let in-house expertise go away to the private sector, and thus for anything deeply technical they must hire that expertise at a premium.
If instead, say, the provincial government kept a large team of civil servants with the relevant knowhow in-house that cities, regions, or other agencies could call upon, that could bring broader savings overall (and help establish standards provincewide). This expertise could extend to not just designers and engineers, but actual builders and contractors, who could lean on those provincial standards to bulk purchase and mass produce standard infrastructure elements.
But that system has a lot of up-front cost, and our current brand of politics frowns on such long-term thinking. Alas.
If instead, say, the provincial government kept a large team of civil servants with the relevant knowhow in-house that cities, regions, or other agencies could call upon, that could bring broader savings overall (and help establish standards provincewide). This expertise could extend to not just designers and engineers, but actual builders and contractors, who could lean on those provincial standards to bulk purchase and mass produce standard infrastructure elements.
But that system has a lot of up-front cost, and our current brand of politics frowns on such long-term thinking. Alas.