Evidence of meeting #8 for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was infrastructure.
A recording is available from Parliament.
9:30 a.m.
Louis Ranger Deputy Minister, Department of Transport
It's all part of the environmental assessment process. We've been conducting--
9:30 a.m.
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
I'm not asking about the environmental assessment. Have you studied a P3, in a specific study, yes or no?
9:30 a.m.
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
Okay. Would you be willing to table that study so Parliament could see that study?
9:30 a.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Transport
We could share with you the various components of what we would bring to the table as a P3 in the form of an environmental assessment, in the form of geo-technical studies, in the form of what we bring in terms of land assembly--
9:30 a.m.
Conservative
Lawrence Cannon Conservative Pontiac, QC
Mr. Masse, I guess within the new year we will be seeking information.
Is that correct, Deputy?
9:30 a.m.
Conservative
Lawrence Cannon Conservative Pontiac, QC
On the basis of the information we'll be seeking, there will be information that will be there, and I'll make that public.
9:30 a.m.
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
I appreciate that, and I'll be looking for it.
Here's my concern, Mr. Minister. You've been out there advocating a P3 for the Windsor-Detroit border, which is different from the Sarnia experience, where there's special legislation and taxpayers don't have to come with funds; they do it through a cooperative binational process. And it's different from Fort Erie. It's different from Niagara Falls. It's different from everything, historically, for the most part, in Canada, in terms of our international borders and crossings.
Twice you've been out at the meeting for the Canadian Council for Public-Private Partnerships, and you've been out basically hoisting Windsor as an example. But in your remarks today, you say specifically, with respect to the gateways and border crossings fund, to consider whether a P3 option is feasible. I guess my concern is how you come to the conclusion that this should be a P3 project. Today you say that there's going to be a process to determine whether it's feasible, but you've already determined that it's going to be a P3.
9:30 a.m.
Conservative
Lawrence Cannon Conservative Pontiac, QC
No, the process is a little more elaborate than that. We will be, in the early new year, gathering the information and we will be going to requests for interest. Then we'll be able to make, I would suspect, a final determination. From the indications we have had up to now, Mr. Masse, it's an interesting avenue to pursue, and we want to be able to pursue it. But at the end of the day, if it's determined that it isn't in the public interest or it's not something that's going to fly correctly, I can assure you that we are not going to go forward with a process that is not a good process.
It's our belief, up to now, from the information that's been gathered and from the indications we're getting from everybody, that that's the case. But there will be, at a given stage in time, a go or a no-go. We're going to get to that.
9:35 a.m.
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
Why have you departed from, for example, the Blue Water experience? Maybe you can provide that. Why is it you have decided to depart from that historic, successful venture that hasn't cost public taxpayers and that has lower fares than in many other spots? Why are you departing from that? Is it based upon ideology? Is it based upon serious research? What is the reason you're departing from a practice historic to Canada?
December 13th, 2007 / 9:35 a.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Transport
All the conditions converge to a P3. It's a structure where you can control access. The volume is there.
Three weeks ago there was a conference in Toronto, and we held a session for two hours with the best minds in Canada in terms of experts in P3. Everybody agrees, all the conditions are met--
9:35 a.m.
NDP
9:35 a.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Transport
This was at the annual meeting of the Canadian Council for Public-Private Partnerships. There was a session for two hours.
I can share the--
9:35 a.m.
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
With all due respect, you're going to the Canadian Council for Public-Private Partnerships, so of course they're going to have a big hurrah for you.
My concern is whether or not this government has done its due diligence to study whether or not the most important border crossing, which you're hoisting up on the P3 platform for at least two years prior, runs counter to the minister's statements here today that there would be a due diligence process to see whether it's viable or not. You've been putting that out there.
So what's driving this? Has there been hard research done to determine whether this crossing, the most important one for our economy, is actually going to be more successful, have lower toll rates, and be more accountable as a private entity? Because that's not the case with the current private operator. It basically holds much of our economy right now at risk.
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
Lawrence Cannon Conservative Pontiac, QC
I'll tell you that we're looking at this process because the preliminary indications we have are to the effect that because of the volume, because of the size and the scope, because of what we believe to be not only a passing interest but a much more tangible interest, we are going down that route.
I will share with you the information that we have when we get to the requests of interest. We want to see who is going to be interested in doing something there.
The P3 process, as I mentioned, is a process. It's not something where the deputy gets up in the morning and says “Okay, fine, I woke up this morning at 6:30, and I believe this is the way we're going to go.” It is a process that, step by step, will lead us to a final determination.
If we're down that route today and we're in that process, it's because we do have sufficient information that leads us to believe it is the right course of action to take--at the very least to analyze, to be able to look at, and to be able to make a determination.
We feel--
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
Lawrence Cannon Conservative Pontiac, QC
Mr. Masse, we feel that in this process....
I'm more than willing to table a process that will indicate, step A through step Z, what has to be done to be able to determine it.
9:35 a.m.
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
--and I take that to.... But your press release says you were in Toronto today “to seek a partnership with the private sector in the building of a new Windsor border crossing”. So your press release indicates that you are actually out seeking that, yet your comments today say it's going to be going through some vetted process. I'm concerned about that contradiction.
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the minister and the officials for being here today.
I'll make a segue here and say that in terms of the comparison with the Ambassador Bridge, of course the Ambassador Bridge is not a P3, it's a private monopoly.
As well, there are several different models for P3s. There is no one single P3-type model. So one may actually prove successful when we get to the end of that process.
Minister, I want to start with some of the rationale behind Building Canada. Can you take us down the road of what kind of consultations occurred? What types of stakeholders did you talk to in formulating the Building Canada plan? Let's start there.
9:40 a.m.
Conservative
Lawrence Cannon Conservative Pontiac, QC
Thank you, Mr. Watson, for your question.
Maybe I can give a quick response to Mr. Masse on the last part. I wasn't able to answer that, because I didn't have a chance, but I would just point out that the market is going to determine whether or not there is a viability here; and that's the process I'm trying to explain to him. If the market says no, we reject it, it's going to be rejected, but we have strong indications that the market will be interested in this kind of an approach. It is a creative approach.
When you look at Building Canada, it's $33 billion. When you add on what we believe to be a proper estimation, that's $33 billion, plus the provinces announced some money, plus the municipalities did, plus we'll also be unlocking P3s. So that total is estimated to be somewhere in the vicinity of $60 billion, which comes back to our objective of being able to meet that infrastructure deficit.
When we came into power, the Minister of Finance said we needed to have world-class infrastructure in Canada to be able to be competitive. He asked me to go out with my officials to seek the comments and observations and recommendations of everybody. We met with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. We met with the executive of the large cities. We met with the executive of the rural caucus for the Federation of Canadian Municipalities.
I met with numerous ministers of transport, from every province. My officials met with folks from every province who deal with infrastructure. I have personally met with several ministers, and we came back and started and developed the design of our program, which we then resubmitted for the purpose of making sure that we were going in the right direction.
We had informal discussions with, once again, the same people we had met, and we were able then to go through the process in cabinet and have this Building Canada plan adopted. So the year that was spent, within 2006 and 2007, was a year in which we went out and sought commentaries, information, and recommendations from all of the observers who were interested in it. We also had a round table, I recall, of interested parties in infrastructure, whether they be engineers, city managers, or urban transit officials. So yes, we had a large consultation process.
