Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been hard at work since his government took office over a year ago. But how much he's accomplishing has been a matter of some debate in recent months. The latest questions surround the infrastructure projects that were approved after the first budget implementation act was passed on June 13, according to Bloomberg News.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. (Photo: CP) Since then, 860 projects have been approved across Canada. But only one, a disaster mitigation project in Whitecourt, Alta., has actually broken ground in that time frame. The project seeks to "control erosion along the south bank of the Athabasca River" in Whitecourt, a town about 177 kilometres north of Edmonton. The federal government contributed $1,839,888 to realize it. Information regarding the progress of projects comes from a dataset provided by Infrastructure Canada. And indeed, it shows that the Whitecourt project is the only one that's even started construction, after breaking ground on July 13.

Justin Trudeau. (Photo: CP) Bloomberg said the dataset likely underestimates how much progress has actually been made on these projects. An Infrastructure Canada spokesperson said numerous projects have started their work and that 65 per cent of the ones announced as part of the funding's first phase are in progress. But the lack of advancement on them shows that it's tougher to stimulate the economy through infrastructure spending than many likely anticipated. TD noted this in September, when it issued a report showing that stimulus spending won't add as much to Canada's economy as the federal government said it would. The Liberals said their spending would add 0.5 per cent to Canada's GDP this year and one per cent from 2017 to 2018. TD, however, said it was more likely to add 0.3 per cent and 0.2 per cent to the economy in each of the next two years, for a total of 0.5 per cent.