Spending from Trump, Trudeau on infrastructure could drive up costs: documents
OTTAWA — The Trump administration’s fledgling promise to spend $1 trillion on repairing American roads and bridges may have some unintended ripple effects in Canada.
Newly released documents show that top civil servants in Ottawa worried earlier this year that Donald Trump’s ambitious infrastructure program that he talked about on the campaign trail could end up driving up the construction costs in Canada.
Trump has long talked about a massive infrastructure spending program to prod his country’s economy, but the yet-to-be-released program has taken a back seat in a legislative agenda focused on an ongoing fight over health care, the country’s debt levels and tax reform.
The longer it takes to approve a plan, the longer it may put off what a group of deputy ministers worried in February would be an upward pressure on construction prices.