Public Accounts Committee on May 23rd, 2024

[Dan Muys, Conservative, Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON]

You indicate that roads and highways are an important part of trade infrastructure from your perspective.

Has there been any pressure applied from the overall government's no roads policy to you to look at different modes of transportation and steer away from investments through the national trade corridors fund to roads and highways?

[Stephanie Hébert]

In implementing the program, the direction we have always been given and that we have worked under is really about tackling bottlenecks and supply chain constraints.

As noted by my colleague in the Office of the Auditor General, we really did a robust analysis to be able to ground where some of those areas were and to really target our recommendations at tackling those bottlenecks. We took a very evidence-based approach in selecting and ultimately recommending the projects.

[Dan Muys, Conservative, Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON]

Can you give some examples of that?

[Joshua LaRocque]

Sure. Thank you.

As Stephanie mentioned, we have quite a few examples of road projects that allow for the movement of goods throughout Canada or from Canada to the U.S.

For example, in Saskatchewan there's the highways 6 and 39 project that moves goods towards the U.S. border. In northern Saskatchewan, there is a different type of project. It's a project that facilitates the movement of forestry products on three key routes through northern Saskatchewan.

In Nova Scotia there have been a series of projects to twin highways, particularly the 100 series—101, 103 and 104.

There are quite a few projects in the road space that have helped move goods.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

I'm afraid that is the time.

Ms. Khalid, you have the floor for five minutes, please.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I feel like I'm very far away from you. I'm not sure if that's on purpose, but I'm very close to our witnesses. I'm very glad that you are all here today.

I want to start with Transport Canada and ask about decision-making.

When we talk about a lot of these recommendations the Auditor General has provided, we have the heard the rhetoric around the Liberal government this and the Liberal government that.

What is the actual decision-making of a minister in the implementation of the reports as outlined in the OAG's report?

[Stephanie Hébert]

I will approach the question in terms of how we seek direction from the minister in implementing the authority delegated to the department.

First and foremost, in all of the seven calls we have done, what we do is provide recommendations on where we think there are bottlenecks and constraints, and where we should target the investment. There are very clear criteria that we present. There are very clear priorities that we present that are ultimately approved.

As noted by my colleague, those criteria are then translated into how we assess the projects, how we undertake evaluations and how we make recommendations to the minister, so that we're able to show how we have taken the program objectives, terms and conditions and ultimately the targeted priorities that were established for a specific call. With each call we have varied it based on where we felt there was the need for that intervention.

We take that ministerial approval, apply it to the evaluation process and then come back with our recommendations to show how we have respected that direction with the projects that we have put forward for decision-making.

I would just underscore the point that the calls were designed using evidence. The assessment was very transparent and open, and the evaluations were all merit-based. I think that the audit also talked about the fact that no ineligible projects were funded, so it really just speaks to the fact of how evidence drove the entire process.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

How much do ministers intervene in that process that you've outlined as open and transparent?

[Stephanie Hébert]

When we send up a call and when we outline the criteria and the priorities, it is natural for the minister to want to be briefed and to want to understand to inform the minister's decision-making in approving the call.

We would normally also provide updates in terms of where we are. These calls tend to be very oversubscribed. We also tend to get a lot of requests for extensions, so we would keep the office up to date in terms of where we're at in terms of the call process.

When we have finished our assessment process and we provide recommendations, it is very reasonable for the office of the minister to want to be briefed to be able to fully understand how we've respected the minister's original direction, how we've applied it to what we have recommended and to be able to understand and maybe challenge officials in terms of how we came to our conclusions and how we came to our recommendations.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

What happens when a minister disagrees with your recommendations?

[Stephanie Hébert]

When we provide advice and recommendations, we provide the project, so it's all merit based. We will recommend projects that we feel should be prioritized for investment. Ministers are able to choose from a list of projects, including ones that are not recommended, as long as they are eligible and they meet the terms and conditions of the program. Ministers can do that.

What I think this audit has found—and that's what I really want to underscore—is that we did not have any ineligible projects that were funded. All of the projects that we have recommended have been meritorious.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

I appreciate that.

As elected officials, we come and go, but the bureaucracy stays the same.

I'm sorry to say that I've heard from bureaucrats who say that if ministers don't agree with their projects, they'll just wait until the next one. Is that something that is within the bureaucracy? Is that the culture to say that they are permanent and the government comes and goes?

[Stephanie Hébert]

Absolutely not.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Thank you. I really appreciate that, and I would like you to expand on that a little bit further in terms of how you deal with the changing nature of our democracy and different ministers coming in with different objectives or different viewpoints, perhaps.

How do you at Transport Canada, which is, in my opinion, the most important part of how we function as a country, deal with that?

[Stephanie Hébert]

How we deal with it is to undertake an analysis of what we feel is needed in this particular case in the transportation system and in the supply chain system. That's often informed by a lot of collaboration and consultation. Through the Council of Ministers, we work very closely with provinces and territories, and we've been seeking their input in terms of transportation priorities and infrastructure investment priorities. The supply chain office is doing the same to get input from stakeholders.

We're able to roll up what we hear, our own analysis and the evidence that we have undertaken to be able to provide advice and guidance to ministers in terms of where we feel government may need to make an investment or may need to intervene.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much. That is the time.

Ms. Sinclair‑Desgagné, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to follow up on the previous line of questioning and the fact that the projects that have been funded have been value-based.

In the report, we see that the department was unable to show what value criteria were used to prioritize projects. In addition, project selection was subjective, in that it was up to the minister or Treasury Board to make final decisions on funded projects.

How can a taxpayer ensure that the projects funded were truly based on value, given the subjective element and the lack of evidence to support the selection?

[Stephanie Hébert]

I will go back, Mr. Chair, to comments and observations offered by the Office of the Auditor General in the sense that the calls were designed using evidence. How we prioritized what we wanted to fund and what the particular focus of the call would be was guided by evidence and research. That the assessment criteria—

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

What do you mean by evidence and research?

[Stephanie Hébert]

Economic analysis is done to—

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

I'm an economist, so you can get into the details.

[Stephanie Hébert]

That analysis has been done and it has guided us.

It's where there might have been bottlenecks, supply chain constraints, so we could really look at how we target those specific areas so that we could really show where we were making recommendations to address the specific issues.

The criterion we use to evaluate all proposals is published in a public guide for the benefit of applicants. We use the same grid and the same guide for project evaluation.

I think we made a mistake when making adjustments after the national committee meeting. We did not properly document the reasons why we made slight adjustments in the score given to such a project.

This is a recommendation we accept. I think this is an area where we can do better to show how, through calibration exercises, we've adjusted evaluation scores through that exercise.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much.

Next up we have Mr. Desjarlais.

You have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Again, I want to return to the questions that young people ask me often. How are we going to get around in a Canada that hopes to achieve a position where we can actually start to bring down our emissions, start to combat the climate crisis and try to build a future where we can continue to fish, hunt, do the good things that many Canadians currently enjoy? The fact that climate change is continuing to take those opportunities away from Canadians is deeply heartbreaking. I know that young people, in particular when it comes to roadways, are often curious. They often ask me why Canada doesn't invest more in passenger rail.

We heard recently that Via Rail, for example, was going to take out its western rail passenger train from Edmonton to Vancouver, one of the most frequently travelled tourism pathways in Canada. One of my colleagues on the transport committee, Mr. Taylor Bachrach, actually rode that portion of the rail. By plane it takes about an hour and 20 minutes to 40 minutes. By train, sometimes it can take up to 24 hours to 48 hours. This is largely due to the right-of-way for cargo, and I understand that. However, wouldn't the solution be to create a process where passenger rail would be more efficient, at least more trustworthy?

[Stephanie Hébert]

Mr. Chair, in answering the question, I'm going to touch on two things.

First, I'll go back in terms of how we ensure that the environmental considerations inform our evaluations. Second, though—and, again, it's the responsibility of a colleague—Transport Canada is working on the high-frequency rail project.

I'm happy to speak to our remote passenger rail project, and the support and work that we do, and that's where I would turn to my colleague, Joshua.

I would just emphasize again that when we do our evaluations and we do solicit projects, we make it very clear that climate change resiliency and environmental sustainability are front and centre and are very important in the national trade corridor fund and how we deliver the program. When we evaluate projects, we do look at the impact of the projects on the climate and on the environment, at how the project will help with climate change resiliency. We do look at how the project will ultimately reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Those are things we look at and evaluate. Those are things now, in terms of performance measures, that we are going to more systematically track and roll up in terms of telling the program performance story.

I'm not sure if my colleague has anything he'd like to add.