Roadbuilders group urges Alberta municipality to let province ‘catch up’ on repairing ‘deteriorating’ highways

About 80 Fort McMurray residents came out to patch potholes on Highway 63 on June 12, 2026. (Credit: Mohammad Tarrabin)

A group representing hundreds of heavy construction firms in the province is urging a northern Alberta community to leave highway maintenance responsibilities to the government.

Ron Glen, the chief executive officer of the Alberta Roadbuilders and Heavy Construction Association, says the Rural Municipality of Wood Buffalo should stand down from its overtures over the last year to the Alberta government, asking if it can take over maintenance of an a stretch of Highway 63 at Fort McMurray, so that there can be a bigger push by more organizations to get the province to better maintain all its roadways.

Glen stated that stance in a letter to Wood Buffalo four days after 80 volunteers on June 12 patched 200 potholes over 1.8 kilometres of the major highway that runs through Fort McMurray, connecting the major hamlet north to oil sands operations and south to Edmonton 380 kilometres away.

“You may want to do well by your constituents, but what we ask them is to join us in advocating for a real increase to the highway budget to start catching up on these highways that are deteriorating,” Glen told CTV News Edmonton on Thursday.

Wood Buffalo’s mayor says the current condition of Highway 63 needs to improve as soon as possible.

Sandy Bowman told CTV News Edmonton in a statement that he believes one way to make things better is for the municipality to oversee spring and summer maintenance of an 18-kilometre stretch that runs through Fort McMurray. That way, Bowman said, the municipality can immediately discuss it with the people doing the work, instead of calling the province for help.

Glen says, however, the Highway 63 example in Fort McMurray is just one small example of the amount of work required on provincial highways. He says provincial data shows the number of them in poor condition has been increasing – from 11.2-per-cent of them in 2002-03 to 15-per-cent in 2023-24 – and that, based on inflation, highway maintenance budgets have been stagnant or dropping since 2010.

Devin Dreeshan, Alberta’s minister of transportation and economic corridors, told CTV News Edmonton that this year’s highway maintenance budget is about $450 million. In a presentation that Glen has given to several MLAs, he says the province had a higher highway repair budget 16 years ago – $540 million, adjusted for inflation.

When asked by CTV News Edmonton if the province would be able to increase its budget for highway maintenance, Dreeshan said his ministry will go into next year’s funding process “with an adequate budget ask to make sure we can maintain the services that Albertans need.”

Dreeshan also said the province continues to negotiate with Wood Buffalo over Highway 63 maintenance, adding that his department has been able to prioritize the repair work on the highway and that the contractor has been making pothole repairs since April 1.

“If I were a gambling man, I would probably say by next summer, we could see a new agreement between the province and Wood Buffalo,” Dreeshan said.

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Matt Woodman