Transport Committee on Oct. 19th, 2006

[François Picard]

We had indicated that the policy should instead be developed by the Government of Canada, in other words Environment Canada, Health Canada, perhaps—

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Transport Canada as well.

[François Picard]

Transport Canada of course. The UMQ, the Union des municipalités du Québec, could be called upon to participate. The railway companies could also be associated with the project, but I do not know if they should be too closely linked to it.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Would it be possible to accomplish what you have outlined in the strategy without the cooperation of the companies? Of course, there are all kinds of confidential, commercial details, for example.

[François Picard]

A partnership is of course desirable, as is good cooperation between private companies and government.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you.

Mr. Bell, you have twenty seconds.

[Don Bell, Liberal, North Vancouver, BC]

Thank you.

Just quickly, again on the issue of noise readings, with municipal experience on municipal bylaws, sometimes in western Canada you can use the term “nuisance” as opposed to a decibel level, because intermittent noise is hard to read with a noise meter. Sometimes it can be a nuisance, and I don't know if you've had any experience with that.

[André Demers]

May I interject on this topic?

As regards decibels, it is generally a measurement where the intensity of the noise varies over a given period of time, such as a day. And there will be an average level. That is often what happens—and this is the most bothersome noise for people—when impulse noise occurs. We have heard examples of this throughout Canada when, for example, railway companies are switching rail cars in the yard in the middle of the night. When the car is unhooked and it bumped into another, if the shock absorber at the other end has not been improved, impulse noise occurs, and that is a nuisance.

Now, when you measure noise over the course of the day, the decibel level may seem somewhat reasonable, but we see that there is nevertheless a nuisance. That is the kind of situation that can be eliminated thanks to better technology and better schedule management, mechanisms, motors, equipment, and locomotives.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you very much.

I have to advise the committee that our time for this meeting is up.

I do want to express my thanks to the City of Quebec, the City of Lévis, the City of New Westminster, the City of Langley, and the Township of Langley. Your comments have been duly recorded, and hopefully the committee will hear your recommendations and concerns and advise government of the same.

[Witnesses]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

We do have a little bit of committee business to deal with. Mr. Julian gave notice of a motion at the last meeting. Just for the information of the committee, Mr. Julian will introduce the motion. He is then going to excuse himself and Ms. Chow will present it to the committee. She's going to speak on the motion and then we'll move to debate and vote.

Mr. Julian.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I will move the motion and then turn things over to Ms. Chow, from Trinity—Spadina.

The notice of motion that we provided on Tuesday basically states to this committee that the Roger Tassé review of the Toronto Port Authority be made public and subject to a review at an upcoming meeting of the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities. I move this motion, and you will recall that we discussed this issue at previous meetings.

I'll turn things over to Ms. Chow .

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Chair, thank you for giving me this opportunity.

I urge you to adopt this motion, and if it's possible, I urge you to even amend it to say, “subject to a review and upcoming meetings prior to the end of October or the break week in November”. Please allow me to tell you why.

Historically, the dealings of the Toronto Island Airport belonged to a harbour commission that has always belonged to the City of Toronto. Unfortunately, in 2001 the Canada Marine Act was amended and control of this airport was taken from the City of Toronto and given to Ottawa, against a lot of objections from the local municipality. If the mayor of Toronto and the entire city council were here, they would probably say they have difficulties with that.

Since then, there have been a lot of difficulties with this port authority. Of course, it's a federal agency at this point. As a result of a lot of controversy, a deal was signed by the previous government that was worth about $35 million. It was not clear why that was signed. It connected with the building of a bridge that got cancelled. The bridge itself was only $22 million, but the cancellation cost was $35 million. As a result, the new minister then ordered the review, which was the Roger Tassé review.

The review has been finished. I believe it was given to the minister on Monday of this week. The minister, in the House of Commons yesterday, said he would make it public. He is reviewing it right now and he would want to discuss it, and perhaps there will be some action.

I think it's important for this committee to examine those kinds of actions and to look at other opportunities and for some input. I think that would be very helpful. It certainly would be greatly appreciated by the citizens of Toronto, because they have been wanting to get to the bottom of this deal and this whole transaction, and why this port authority was established in the first place.

If this committee can approve this motion and look into it, it would be greatly appreciated. After all, we are talking about transparency and accountability, which I believe is what every member of Parliament would be supportive of, I am sure.

Also, there's local control. I would think my Bloc friends want to make sure that something that belonged to the local municipality wouldn't be just ripped away. That's what happened in 2001, and maybe it should be returned.

So I urge the committee members to support this motion and approve it. If you could see to it that there would even be a timeline attached to it, that would be even better, because this is subject to a huge uproar in the city of Toronto.

And just to finish with a last point, this Toronto Port Authority recently launched a new ferry. On the ferry's first day of operation—its maiden journey, as you'd say—all the media in Toronto were brought on board and a big party was held to celebrate this ferry. On this first day that it sailed forth, a trip that should only take maybe seven minutes took half an hour, and the ferry spun around and crashed. It was actually quite humorous if you watched the television coverage of it. It was the top story in the local papers.

This port authority has been subject to a lot of concerns, so certainly it would be entertaining, and it would be wonderful if your committee could examine this review.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you, Ms. Chow.

Mr. Jean.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I read the motion today for the first time, but I accept that proper notice was given.

I wonder why we're having this discussion. The minister has already indicated he's going to table the report in the near future, and we have a very ambitious agenda in front of us. I would suggest that once the report itself is made public, which we understand is going to happen in the near future, if we then as a committee decide to review the report and make it a committee item, we do so, but until that time I see absolutely no reason to have this. There's not even a date in it for when the standing committee can look at this or for when we have to look at it.

We've already heard from the minister. He's going to make it public. Why would we need to have this at this time? We're not going to be getting it fitted in in the next couple of weeks, for certain, and I would suggest the minister's going to have that report made public well within that period of time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Mr. McGuinty.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Thanks, Mr. Chairman.

I thank you for appearing, Ms. Chow. It's good to see you.

I agree that everyone at this table and everyone in the House is very much in favour of transparency and accountability. I was listening carefully. I was remembering that of course it's a very important local issue in Toronto, a very important provincial issue in Toronto, a very important federal issue in Toronto. But I'm struggling with what compels urgency here.

I was very concerned, as you were yesterday, until the minister stood up in the House of Commons—I have to take him at face value—and said he was going to release the report within a week, or maybe two weeks. I'm not sure what the transcript would read; I can't remember the detail. I thought I heard that in the French answer. So I'm not sure, is there something here that compels urgency that we're not getting, which we need to address?

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Ms. Chow.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

In fact, there are several lawsuits going on right now. The Toronto Port Authority evicted Air Canada Jazz, and there's a new airline called Porter Airlines that is starting a flight Monday of this coming week. So in fact, Monday morning this coming week there will be a flight of this new airline.

There is a massive expansion of the island airport being planned, and a lot of the funding of this expansion of airlines coming into the island airport actually came from this $35 million deal.

There is a huge controversy as to whether the Toronto waterfront should have a dramatic increase of airline traffic into the waterfront, in a place that is the heart of the financial district and has a lot of condominiums. There's the question of safety, the question of whether it would be financially viable, and of why taxpayers should continue to fund this whole enterprise.

The longer the whole port authority is shrouded in controversy and secrecy, the more the liabilities. If the federal government decides to turn this port authority back to the citizens of Toronto—back to the City of Toronto, for example—the longer the airlines operate the more liability it would incur and the more expensive it would be to deal with the whole situation.

So the faster it's discussed here, through having a discussion with the minister or having a discussion at this committee, the better it would be.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Mr. McGuinty, go ahead.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Ms. Chow. This is very enlightening. Jazz was evicted, Porter's in, there are lawsuits outstanding, there's an increase in airline traffic, and you mentioned safety and financial viability. But I'm struggling with what compels the urgency. Flights have been going in and out of Toronto Island for 25 years. These lawsuits that are outstanding, I think, have been going on for two years.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

No, Jazz was evicted very recently, and as a result of—

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Jazz was forcibly evicted from the island?

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Yes.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

So it was forcibly evicted from the island airport? Or was its lease terminated or was...?