[1] The Government of Canada maintains very little power or authority over the maintenance or expansion of the system beyond sharing part of the cost of economically significant projects within the network.
However, the federal government provides some funding assistance for important maintenance and expansion projects on designated highways through cost sharing programs.
[3] For instance, several recent maintenance projects on National Highway System routes in Saskatchewan were partly funded under the federal government's Building Canada Fund–Major Infrastructure Component,[3] while several four-laning projects in Ontario in the 2000s accessed federal funding under the Strategic Highway Infrastructure Program.
[5] Recent transportation planning proposals have identified public-private partnerships and dedicated fuel taxes as possible mechanisms for providing more stable funding, although no comprehensive program has been implemented to date.
[6] In many parts of the country, the system relies on two-lane highways, or expressways which are not fully up to international freeway standards; according to Lakehead University economics professor Livio di Matteo, many parts of the system, even on the main Trans-Canada Highway portion of the network, still leave "the nation's east-west flow of personal and commercial traffic subject to the whims of an errant moose".
Cox notes that many Canadians prefer to drive between Western Canada and Eastern Canada by travelling through the United States rather than on Canadian highways; even though the distance may be longer than the Trans-Canada Highway route, as it frequently takes a shorter amount of time due to the US Interstate system's higher speed limits, increased lane capacity, higher number of alternative routes, and reduced likelihood of being delayed by a road accident.
Within the core and feeder classes, the system's official register made additional distinctions between conventional core or feeder routes and intermodal links or "anomalies", where a highway that does not meet the normal criteria for inclusion, or a municipal arterial road, has been adopted into the system to fill in a gap in the network.
The "intermodal" and "anomaly" classes are not distinct designations, however, but simply represent an additional clarification of why the road holds "core" or "feeder" status.