Evidence of meeting #20 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was infrastructure.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Conservative
Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Other than making one other comment, I'm going to focus my comments and questions solely on the gas tax fund. First, I appreciate Ms. Geller's comments on the product safety report. I did find that this part of your report really under-valued the role that the chemical management plan plays in protecting Canadians. I'll leave it at that, as my focus is on the gas tax fund.
The original gas tax agreement with the municipalities, of course, included a very clear statement about environmental sustainability objectives. However, I believe that Ms. Gelfand as well as our officials from Infrastructure Canada will acknowledge that the 2014 gas tax agreement did three things that were different.
One, there was the elimination of principle number 6 on reporting. I understand that would have been driven at least in part by the fact that reporting already does take place at the provincial and municipal level.
Second, there was the elimination of the purpose that focused these projects exclusively on environmentally sustainable projects.
Third, it expanded the eligibility criteria significantly beyond simply environmentally focused projects, for example, short-line rail, short sea shipping, regional and local airports, broadband connectivity, brownfield redevelopments, sports infrastructure, recreational infrastructure, and culture infrastructure. My understanding of the context here is that the original agreement was causing significant grief at the provincial level, and even more so at the municipal level.
I was a municipal councillor at the time, as was my colleague Ms. Watts. There was incredible frustration because this was to be a program, the gas tax fund, where the federal government simply supported municipalities in building their critical infrastructure, some of which was environmentally focused, but some of which didn't have explicit environmental objectives. The 2014 agreement reflected that, reflected the frustration, and as a new agreement was broadly accepted and welcomed by the municipal community across Canada.
When I look at the report, I see that it is almost exclusively focused on reporting on whether the gas tax fund transfers were delivering on environmental objectives. As a former municipal councillor, I always understood that projects are focused firstly upon the priorities of the municipalities themselves. The more the federal government sought to interfere in the setting of those priorities by manipulating things in one direction or another, the more frustration there was at the municipal level.
Our Conservative government understood that. We revised the agreement. It was embraced by municipalities, and from what I understand, is working very well. We obviously also doubled the amount to about $2 billion a year. We actually put an inflation factor into it, and we made the program permanent, all of which responded—
Conservative
Conservative
Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC
My question, first of all, to Infrastructure Canada is, as you review the projects that come in from municipalities, do you place a broader lens on them than their simply being environmentally sustainable projects? Let me be even more explicit. Do you consider projects that may not have an environmental focus, as the gas tax fund projects are being vetted and approved?
Bogdan Makuc Director, Program Operations, Program Integration, Infrastructure Canada
Just to clarify, I know that with the gas tax fund, the federal government does not approve projects. As you say, this is a program to support municipalities' core investments and infrastructure. The funding is transferred from the federal government to the provinces, territories, or municipal associations in certain cases, and then transferred to municipalities, and they decide on projects. You're correct that, as of 2014, there are broader objectives in place, and the gas tax fund is there primarily to support municipalities address their core municipal infrastructure needs.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Program Operations, Infrastructure Canada
Your question is also about whether we are monitoring the categories of projects the investment are going to. Yes, we are as a department?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Program Operations, Infrastructure Canada
However, the provinces and the territories are responsible for collecting the data. They feed that into a report on an annual basis, but they also [Inaudible--Editor] the agreement in the program. They have to publish an outcome report by March 31, 2018, and then again by March 31, 2023. Therefore, there are checkpoints for the evolution of the gas tax.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Program Operations, Infrastructure Canada
The provinces and the territories.
Conservative
Assistant Deputy Minister, Program Operations, Infrastructure Canada
That's correct.
Conservative
Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC
Ms. Gelfand, your focus was almost exclusively on the environmental accountability for these projects, even though the understanding of municipalities, and my understanding, was that the purpose was to respect the fact that local communities make their own decisions on priorities. I believe your suggestion is still that you would carry on...that you want to see the federal government do a full analysis of each project to determine what those environmental outcomes are that you hope you're going to realize. How do you square that?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte
Mr. Fast, I'm sorry, but this is why I butted in before, because I was concerned that you wouldn't get enough time to get where you were going, and we're out of time.
NDP
Fin Donnelly NDP Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC
Thank you, Madam Commissioner, and your team, for all the good work you've been doing, and thank you, Mr. Ferguson, for being here. Thanks to all the departmental officials for coming and providing your testimony to the committee.
Madam Commissioner, in your report on severe weather, you note that Public Safety and Environment Canada are not giving decision-makers the information tools they need to mitigate the effects of severe weather conditions. With these tools, like flood-plain maps, climate data, and intensity duration frequency data, were you able to identify the barriers to this information sharing?
