Evidence of meeting #10 for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was area.
A recording is available from Parliament.
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Merv Tweed
I have to stop you there. Thank you.
Watching the clock, I'm going to go for one more round of five minutes for each party.
Ms. Morin, you're first.
November 2nd, 2011 / 5:10 p.m.
NDP
Isabelle Morin NDP Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC
I'm going to continue the discussion about the small regions.
Basically you're recommending that the private sector have a collaborative role with the public sector in terms of commitment. How do you foresee the role of the federal government, with a view to ensuring service for all rural towns? Do we need a long-term strategy? Do we need to make sure all Canadians have access to transport? How do you foresee the federal government's funding for transportation in rural areas?
5:10 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Metrolinx
Thank you for the question.
A few minutes ago, I mentioned the importance of mobility and how different parts of the country have different mobility requirements. When I look at jurisdictions around the world, what I see is that one of the key areas in which the national government does actually play a role is the area of rural access.
When I think of the United States, for example, there is work under way at the national level, not just about urban transportation issues, but actually about how you ensure, for example, rural safety in our transportation systems. In the event of collisions and crashes along our rural roads and highways, how do you make sure that you can identify, respond, and address the event as quickly as possible? Also, how do you deal with mobility for people who don't have access to the same forms of transportation as others in the community?
Those are the kinds of areas--potentially identifying mobility and accessibility standards for the country as a whole--that could play a role in a national transit strategy.
5:10 p.m.
NDP
Isabelle Morin NDP Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC
In your investment strategy, you ask for a sharing of responsibilities among all levels of government. It's not just money involved. I think you're actually proposing that the federal government harmonize the vision of public transit held by the various levels of government and the various bodies that gravitate around this issue.
I'd like to hear your comments in this regard.
5:10 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Metrolinx
As part of the investment strategy, we see two elements that we need to be pursuing. One is alternative revenue tools that could help us sustain the level of investment required to build our transportation services. The second element is a way in which all levels of government can support elements of the implementation of the regional transportation plan.
The regional transportation plan, if I can use your term, I would see as the harmonizing tool to say that there's a compelling vision of how we want to develop the system and that there are particular elements in the potential projects being funded that make sense for the federal government. Maybe there are other projects that are less compelling for the federal government. That could hold true for other levels of government as you look at different elements.
I think the role of the transportation plan is to say that here's the suite of projects that we want to move forward with and here are the priorities, so how can we build a partnership--which we can all buy into--to deliver on services that is going to help our economy and is going to help millions of people who live in our communities?
5:15 p.m.
Conservative
5:15 p.m.
NDP
Andrew Cash NDP Davenport, ON
Okay.
Thank you for being here.
I want to just get back to one last thing around electrification versus diesel. It strikes us—as I know you know—as a little strange that the province would spend money, or that Metrolinx would spend money, on a diesel rail link and then later spend money to electrify it. It seems like a waste of money. If the federal government provided some sort of overarching framework for a national public transit strategy, would we be able to avoid some of this kind of duplication down the road?
5:15 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Metrolinx
Thank you for the question.
We don't think we're duplicating or spending taxpayers' money inappropriately. We think there are some really compelling reasons to move as quickly as we can to deliver the Air Rail Link service.
I mentioned the five million people right now who every year drive between downtown Toronto and Pearson airport.
We also have the Pan Am games coming up. This is one of the only transportation commitments in the Pan Am games bid book that the levels of government endorsed in saying it would be in service in time for the Pan Am games.
So there are some important transportation benefits and some important governance reasons why we should be delivering the project.
That being said, we do need to look at the most effective way to deliver our rail services in an urban environment like the greater Toronto and Hamilton area in the future. That has implications not just for the GO rail service and the Air Rail Link service. That has implications for VIA and that has implications for the freight services. We need to make sure that we are going to be providing an environment in which all the different users of the same corridor can coexist.
We've come up with a concept at Metrolinx that we've called “express rail”, where we can actually move our GO transit service to a point where we can get frequencies up to about every five to ten minutes. You don't actually need to have a rail schedule any more to know when to go catch a train; you just go to the station. To accommodate that level of service, and the passenger ridership that will come with it, requires some significant investments in electrification.
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
Denis Coderre Liberal Bourassa, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I have three short questions.
I suppose that you have links with other agencies, such as the Société de transport de Montréal or the AMT, and that you discuss these things together. What are your relations with these agencies? What are your relations with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and the Association of Municipalities of Ontario? I imagine that you have specific ongoing relations with these organizations pertaining to public transit files.
5:15 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Metrolinx
Absolutely, and there is a discussion that's hosted by the Canadian Urban Transit Association. Most of the 106 transit agencies in Canada are members of that, and it provides a venue for a dialogue.
We work with AMO, but less so with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities since it's the national group, and we work primarily through AMO with FCM.
But there is also an ongoing conversation with AMT in Montreal, TransLink in Vancouver, and Toronto, because we do talk with those three centres about the unique challenges and issues that face the transportation systems in Vancouver, Montreal, and Toronto. We try to have a dialogue.
That doesn't eliminate the need for better structure and a more concerted effort to have a dialogue among all orders of government, but we do have a dialogue with our sister agencies around the country.
5:20 p.m.
Liberal
Denis Coderre Liberal Bourassa, QC
Regarding procurement now, of course, if we're talking about investment over $16 billion, does that include the rail and--
the cars?
5:20 p.m.
Liberal
Denis Coderre Liberal Bourassa, QC
And you're in charge? You are doing it? Are you going through the provincial government, or is it through your own organization that you're--
5:20 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Metrolinx
Some of those projects were cost-shared projects. I mentioned the Spadina subway extension, for example. The TTC is actually delivering that project.
But the bus rapid transit system in York Region, the Eglinton Crosstown LRT in Toronto, the Air Rail Link to Pearson airport, and parts of the Mississauga Transitway are all being done directly through Metrolinx or through our agent.
5:20 p.m.
Liberal
Denis Coderre Liberal Bourassa, QC
How do you manage to make sure there is no collusion? Do you have some specific process? Do you have an inspector-general or a comptroller? How does it work?
5:20 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Metrolinx
We have a number of different mechanisms to exercise control and accountability. One is obviously the competitive nature of the marketplace in general, and we monitor very closely the number of bids we get in. We do our own estimates of the cost of the work before we put it out on the street, and we compare the tender prices against what the estimates were. If there is a variation--either over or under--we have a review of the basis for those variations.
In many cases, we have a fairness commissioner who is a part of the procurement process and independently does a report to us and to the board about the quality of the procurement we actually went through. We have internal auditors as well as external auditors who come in and give us a review on an ongoing basis. We also have the provincial Auditor General, who comes in and sees us on a periodic basis.
5:20 p.m.
Liberal
Denis Coderre Liberal Bourassa, QC
You're making sure, regarding the extras, that it's not the strategy for contracts...?
5:20 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Metrolinx
In terms of change orders and things of that nature?
5:20 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Metrolinx
Yes. Whenever you're in a construction process--and anyone who has done a renovation of a home realizes this--sometimes the final price is not exactly the same as the original price. We've all experienced that.
5:20 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Metrolinx
Yes, we do have procedures built in.
5:20 p.m.
Liberal
Denis Coderre Liberal Bourassa, QC
I have one last question.
The other thing that costs a lot is the IT--everything, all the systems, and Wi-Fi and all of that. How do you manage? That's through PRESTO, right?
5:20 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Metrolinx
Information and information technology is actually a place where we need to take a more concerted look. Again, when we look at areas where we need to do a better job, I and IT is one of those areas.
As for intelligent transportation systems, obviously we're implementing PRESTO and we've had some great success with that, but for traveller information and trip planners that are multimodal and work across municipal boundaries, those are all areas for future work, and again, they are areas where the federal government plays a role in terms of developing national standards that then get applied provincially and are disseminated to municipalities and regions.