Transport committee  I work for them so I'm not sure I would agree with that, but for some specific reasons. First of all, up until just a couple of years ago municipalities spent 90% of what Canada spends in municipal infrastructure in the country. The rest was coming from provincial and federal go

Transport committee  Absolutely. I think the question is: how big of a problem is it? Also, is the size of that problem large enough to offset the costs of trying to solve that problem? By Cardus' own research in the province of Ontario, which seems to have the most significant challenge in this reg

Transport committee  For sure, thank you. In fact, our submission to budget 2013 outlined what we believe is our prescription for that. The principles are pretty simple. One is that we need to improve the ability of municipalities to plan their infrastructure in the long term. The best way to do tha

Transport committee  We certainly don't have a position specific to that question. When we looked at the question that this committee had forwarded on how to improve competition within the infrastructure sector, we had identified other areas that would in fact increase competition and improve the out

Transport committee  Certainly if you were to ask us if this committee or Infrastructure Canada should carry out more thorough research related to how closed tendering is driving infrastructure costs, we'd absolutely support that.

Transport committee  The research that we've undertaken has only uncovered very anecdotal evidence. Certainly the cases in Hamilton and Kitchener do appear to require further research. Having said that, it does appear that these are the result of provincial regulations that have been in place for alm

Transport committee  Thank you for the question. To clarify, on a cost overrun on a three-way, cost-shared project through the building Canada fund, for example, 100% of the cost overrun will be borne by the municipal government. Even if the cost overrun is a result of delays in approving the projec

Transport committee  Thank you for the question. Certainly one of FCM's interests in working with the federal government in the design of the new programs is to take the best of what we learned in the economic action plan and apply those lessons to the new programs. This essentially means reducing a

Transport committee  Obviously the building Canada fund is intended to be a three-way, cost-shared program, which means in our view three partners are involved. I think our members would say it's absolutely fair for each partner to ensure its own accountability is met through various restrictions or

Transport committee  Not entirely. This is a silly, complex issue in that the budget reports on the funds that leave Ottawa and are sent to the project partner, in our case municipalities, but the way the federal government administers its application-based programs it doesn't send the cheque to the

Transport committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to all of you for having us here today. Actually, I bring regrets from Mayor Doug Reycraft of Southwest Middlesex, who was actually supposed to be here with me today. He got hung up waiting for a much-delayed plane. He isn't able to be here bu

Industry committee  Yes.

Industry committee  Generally, I think I'd say our position is that the order of government that is in the best position to make the most efficient allocation decisions is at the local level. It knows the situation best and it is most accountable locally. That being said, most municipalities are go

Industry committee  FCM doesn't actually build or fund broadband infrastructure, for instance, but our raison d'être here in Ottawa is to help the federal government, and indeed Parliament, understand how the government can work more effectively with the municipalities, and to identify emerging need

Industry committee  No. Right now the gas tax fund can only be used for four or five categories: roads, bridges, water, wastewater, transit, and some other things, but definitely not broadband. On the other hand, the Building Canada fund is able to be spent on broadband, and indeed many municipaliti