Transport Committee on May 28th, 2009

[David Jeanes]

I don't have the numbers here. Last year, the Railway Association of Canada put forward some numbers that were part of a memorandum of understanding between the railways and the federal government. The railways are already meeting Kyoto objectives, even in their existing operations. This is quite apart from what could be achieved if there were a substantial shift from a fossil fuel system to an electrified one. We're behind the rest of the world in rail electrification, and we know there is renewed interest in this matter in Ontario and Quebec. The potential benefits are significant, but I can't give you the numbers right now. Of course, you'd have to reallocate the routes and schedules to rebalance the traffic on the system.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

You must have been really pleased to see the government's investment of more than $1.1 billion in VIA Rail for the VIA Fast project.

[David Jeanes]

The money that has been given to VIA is much needed. It's being wisely spent. This is a very good investment, which is bringing some economic benefits. It will give us moderate improvements in track speed between Ottawa-Toronto-Montreal, greater capacity, and less interference with freight trains. So there are a great many benefits there, and we're very glad to see that kind of investment. We are talking about bigger numbers, and the private sector has a big role to play. But previous studies have shown that the private sector can't finance the infrastructure; this requires a public component. It was previously shown, however, that the private sector can operate a service at a profit as long as the infrastructure is there.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you.

Mr. Langis.

[Sylvain Langis]

I would like to put a little nuance in the answer given by Mr. Jeanes concerning the electrified system of high-speed rail. Yes, it's true that electrified high-speed rail would be much better for the environment than diesel locomotives, but it all depends where the electricity comes from. If comes from a coal plant, I'm not sure we're going to be in the place we think we should be.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you.

I know Mr. Del Mastro has a keen interest. The Railway Association presented the greenhouse gas numbers, estimating the potential reduction in emissions.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

I appreciate that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Yes, thank you.

I'll thank our witnesses today. I appreciate your time and input. I'm sure you'll be following the rest of the study with great interest.

We'll take a one-minute break while our new witnesses position themselves, and then we'll get back to it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you, and welcome back to part two.

Our guests have joined us. They're not on my list, but I'm going to ask Mr. Phil Benson to introduce who's with us today.

Please introduce your colleagues and we'll move forward.

[Phil Benson, Lobbyist, Teamsters Canada]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's a pleasure to be here again.

With me today are Mr. Brehl and Mr. Wheten from our Teamsters Canada Rail Conference. We'll be starting with Mr. Brehl for perhaps two or three minutes and Mr. Wheten will conclude our remarks.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

I will introduce Mr. Grant Hopcroft. He's the director of intergovernmental and community liaison for the City of London. Welcome.

Please begin.

[William Brehl, President, Teamsters Canada Rail Conference - Maintenance of Way Employees Division, Teamsters Canada]

Honoured members of the committee, ladies and gentlemen, my name is William Brehl. I'm the president of the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference maintenance of way employees division. Our division represents all of the men and women who build, inspect, and maintain the track, bridges, and structures at CP Rail and over two dozen short lines. No one knows building rail and keeping it safe better than our people. We're the people Pierre Berton wrote about and Gordon Lightfoot sang about.

I want to thank you for allowing me a few minutes to speak to you concerning Teamsters Canada's position on high-speed rail. We believe in both the idea and the reality of high-speed rail. We can't help but see this as an excellent direction for transportation in Canada, coming at an opportune time. This will benefit Canadians for generations to come, not only with the employment that is tied to the construction and maintenance, but also with the infrastructure change itself.

The initial effect of high-speed rail will be the creation of thousands of new jobs needed to construct the system. In the 1991 Ontario/Quebec Rapid Train Task Force final report, it's estimated that, and I quote: “The construction phase of the HSR project will generate an estimated 45,000 person years for the 200 KPH option and 127,000 person years for the 300 kilometre per hour option.”

As you're all aware, the unemployment rate in this country is at 8%. CP Rail alone has seen over 2,500 unionized railway employees laid off since last December. Since we are in the midst of a recession, now is the time to invest in the country's future, creating jobs and establishing a lasting and fully functional legacy.

Teamsters Canada represents well over half of all unionized railway employees in this country. As an organization that represents the interests of thousands of highly skilled railway workers, we naturally welcome any opportunity to increase and broaden Canada's commitment to rail transportation in a safe and productive manner. High-speed rail, if handled properly, could very well be one such opportunity, and consequently we would support it. We not only view HSR as a project that could be good for our membership, but we also view it in its broader context as an infrastructure development project that would be deeply beneficial to all Canadians for many generations to come.

Transportation is the backbone of our economy, and the existence of an HSR line that, in effect, brings Canada's largest population centres closer together can only help to ensure that Canadian prosperity continues to grow. In the short term, a project the size of HSR will provide a much-needed boost to our current slacking economy. It will have an extremely healthy effect on the lives of all working men and women. In the longer term, as the 21st century unfolds, Canada will follow the lead of and experience the same kinds of positive results as many other countries that have implemented HSR systems. Our dependence on oil is not only creating a stranglehold on our economy, but the use of fossil fuels as a transportation energy source could very well be destroying our planet. According to the Earth Policy Institute, three-quarters of the carbon emissions from human activities are due to the combustion of fossil fuels, due in large part to the millions of automobiles packed on our highway.

Environmentally, rail is the friendliest means of land mass transport that there is. Not only will an HSR system greatly reduce the need for fossil fuels as a transportation energy source, it will also, as stated in the Martin Prosperity Institute February 2009 paper on infrastructure, go a long way to help meeting our short-term greenhouse gas emission targets, possibly in the area of 40% of Ontario's greenhouse gas reduction targets for 2020. Linking our urban regions with a high-speed rail network will contribute to providing relief from the major congestion of our roads and thoroughfares, allowing for expanded residential advantages and enhancing our quality of life.

In closing, let me say again that as the nation's premier transportation union, Teamsters Canada is better placed than almost any other stakeholder to contribute in a deep and meaningful way to the success of the high-speed rail project. No one knows track and rail infrastructure better than we do. We alone have had the honour and the responsibility of renewing and maintaining CP Rail's tracks and bridges ever since the last spike was driven in Craigellachie, B.C., in 1885. We view the HSR initiative as a continuation of that great tradition, and we are therefore committed to working with all of our partners in the rail industry, whether labour, company, or government, to ensure that the initiative is handled properly, receives approval, and moves forward.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you.

[Mike Wheten, National Legislative Director, Teamsters Canada Rail Conference - Locomotive Engineers, Teamsters Canada]

From the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference, I'd like to thank the committee for the opportunity to express our views on high-speed rail transportation in Canada.

The TCRC is a branch of Teamsters Canada that represents 12,000 running trades employees in Canada, including locomotive engineers, conductors, train persons, yard persons, rail traffic controllers, and yard masters at CN, CP, VIA Rail, and many of the short line railways. We believe the time is right to evaluate high-speed rail in the present and for the future. Large-scale infrastructure projects, such as the movement from slower-speed trains of 100 miles an hour or less to high-speed and very high-speed rail trains of up to 300 kilometres, have the capacity to propel change within the areas that are served by such trains. For example, the distance between cities served by high-speed rail becomes substantially less when times travelled are compared. This reduction in time travel will make it feasible to live farther from work in kilometres travelled but closer in time travelled.

We are in agreement with moving toward high-speed rail at this time for several reasons. The first is that a project of this size takes time, and the sooner it is started, the less expensive it will probably be. If studies and environmental assessments and decisions can be made now and in the near future, this will save time and money when compared with putting off plans to a later date. The primary factors are the availability and cost of land, materials, and labour, with land being the most critical component of the three. If left to some future date, land may well not be available, especially in and around urban areas.

At present, land is available in the Quebec City-Windsor-Ottawa corridor as well as in the Calgary-Edmonton corridor. Therefore, we applaud the committee's decision to explore high-speed rail in Canada at this time. As noted earlier, if the decision to move forward toward high-speed and very high-speed rail is made soon, it will take a number of years before high-speed rail becomes a reality. In the meantime, we suggest that some thought be given to expanding and improving the 100-miles-an-hour VIA rail service in all of the Quebec City-Windsor-Ottawa corridor. We have been informed that VIA has P42 engines capable of operating at 125 miles an hour, but only on track that would allow this speed. However, it may be feasible to get the speed up to 100 miles an hour in a much shorter time, and this would lead us to high-speed rail if it were decided that high-speed rail was feasible in this corridor.

Some thought should also be given to improving VIA's transcontinental and shorter routes, which, along with urban routes, could serve as feeder lines to a high-speed rail system. Some thought should also be given to expanding to transcontinental lines. Although there are numerous studies and articles on the subject of high-speed rail in Canada, we've only included two with our presentation here.

We would like to make reference to an article by Mr. Monte Paulsen. Mr. Paulsen is of the opinion that high-speed rail corridors are more viable in densely populated areas of the country, which could support the large investments required for high-speed rail infrastructure. In addition to this, he suggests Canadian high-speed rail corridors could hook up with U.S. HSR corridors, making them more viable. The full article is very interesting and certainly worth reading. I brought these two with me and I'll leave them with you today. Unfortunately, we didn't submit our brief in time for it to be provided to the committee.

The second document is a paper from the Martin Prosperity Institute at the University of Toronto. Entitled “Infrastructure and the Economy: Future directions for Ontario”, this paper applies specifically to Ontario, but much of the information could also apply to other urban centres such as Montreal, Calgary, Edmonton, and Vancouver. Page 14 of this document states that:

...the second limitation is that large-scale public spending on infrastructure has a potential to crowd out or compete for resources for construction by the private sector. This point is only valid, however, during a thriving economy. Indeed a good time to make massive investments in new infrastructure projects is during a recession. History shows that many great infrastructure developments were make-work projects during times of depression. Many of the construction projects under the Roosevelt's New Deal of the 1930s were good examples. Similarly during the last significant recession in Ontario in the early 1990s, many road construction projects were instigated under the Canada Infrastructure Works Program.

The purpose of such spending is to stimulate the economy—and this is aided by multiplier effects, which we count as a second form of economic impact...Multiplier effects include not only increased demand in the sectors producing construction materials, but also wider effects throughout the economy at large; for example, output will increase in the retail sector due to increased spending by construction workers. But of course, multiplier effects occur with any form of government spending, or for that matter private spending, in any economy. Moreover, multiplier effects are typically a short-term phenomena. Perhaps the more important question to ask is: What are the long-term economic effects of large scale infrastructure investments?

The first potential long-term effect of infrastructure investment is increased productivity. Connections between infrastructure and the productivity of economies are well recognized. Transportation infrastructure impacts economic growth by increasing the size of markets. Transportation provides accessibility between consumers, producers, workers and suppliers, leading to increases in productivity, typically through economies of scale. Some researchers have established empirical models relating infrastructure to economic growth, although their explanatory power is limited. ... With many different types and scales of markets, different varieties of products and services, and various complementary and competing transportation modes, deciphering the economic impacts of transportation is complex. ... Nevertheless, there is at least some basic understanding of the structure of the causal relationships between infrastructure investment and economic development.

Further on, at the top of page 18, this document also states:

A future in which current levels of automobile use are simply replicated by electric vehicles is, however, undesirable on economic grounds. Current levels of automobile use in Ontario are excessive. Level of congestion are so high, e.g., currently costing the GTHA economy $2.7 billion per year (Metrolinx), that the Province plans substantial new investment in public transportation systems. The economic effects of designing highly automobile dependent cities is decreasing productivity and worrying decreases in household savings rates due to overconsumption.

A more desirable future for Ontario would see her urban regions linked by a high-speed rail network. If appropriately supported by new local transit systems, such as proposed by Metrolinx for the GTHA, then higher levels of connectivity and safer, healthier movement of people will create a new economy. This vision of infrastructure for the creative age needs fundamental changes in land-use planning, with concentration of people and employment around mobility hubs. If transformation of land-use can be achieved--and this remains a key challenge--then reconstruction of the creative city can be expected to attract high levels of private sector investment. A high-speed rail network knitting Ontario's cities together could revolutionize the Province's role within the continental and global economic systems.

The construction of high-speed rail and transformation to plug-in electric vehicles will go a long way to helping Ontario meet its short-term GHG reduction targets. If implemented by 2020, the two scenarios would reduce GHG emissions by about 10-15 million Mt e CO₂. Assuming that this is done in addition to the OPA's current integrated systems plan, and the GTHA regional transportation plan, then over 40% of Ontario's GHG reduction target for 2020 would be achieved.

In conclusion, high-speed rail would be competing directly with air and automobile travel. On a permanent basis, if travel to and from airports is added, high-speed rail could be equal to air and faster than automobile travel. If you also consider the added freedom to work, use a personal phone, and read in comfort, all the while conserving precious energy resources, then at the very least high-speed rail deserves further study. Teamsters Canada will assist in this endeavour in any way we can.

We thank you again for the opportunity to present our views here today.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you.

Please go ahead, Mr. Hopcroft.

[Grant Hopcroft, Director of Intergovernmental and Community Liaison, Chief Administrative Officer's Office, City of London]

Thank you very much.

It's a pleasure to be here on behalf of the City of London to speak on the subject of high-speed rail.

It is a great pleasure to be here with you today.

I would like to speak with you today about London's perspective on high-speed rail. Unfortunately, I am able to address your questions in English only.

I would like to begin with a short introduction to the city of London. We're a regional centre in southwest Ontario. We're Canada's 10th largest urban area, with a population of over 350,000. We're located midway between Windsor and Toronto and we sit at the heart of Ontario and Canada's transportation corridors to the United States. With more than 50% of Canada's trade moving through London by road, rail and air, we have an opportunity to build upon this natural advantage and become an important transportation gateway.

This year MoneySense magazine ranked London as one of the best places to live in Canada, 11th out of 154 communities across the country. We boast a high quality of life and we have a well-educated, highly skilled, diverse, and globally connected community.

We're fortunate to have a number of institutions in our community. We have nationally recognized institutions such as the University of Western Ontario, including the Richard Ivey School of Business, recognized professional schools, teaching hospitals, and internationally recognized research institutions. We're also home to Fanshawe College, the third largest community college in Ontario. It offers the largest number of co-ops of any community college in Canada and this week received almost $16 million in funding for its Centre for Applied Transportation Technologies as part of the joint federal-provincial knowledge infrastructure program. All of these institutions offer strong research and development training and opportunities.

London and southwest Ontario have many significant economic advantages. Before the onset of the current recession, we enjoyed a thriving and diverse manufacturing sector, a rich agricultural base and clusters of world-renowned education and health institutions as well as a network of robust urban and rural communities throughout our region.

London is a logical link in the high-speed rail corridor, because we are home to public and private sector organizations with connections throughout the Quebec City to Windsor corridor, including national and international corporations such as TD Canada Trust, 3M Canada, Pacific & Western Bank, and London Life Insurance Company.

London City Council and its business community have endorsed high-speed rail service from Windsor to Quebec City and submit that, given London's regional significance, there must be a stop in London.

We applaud the governments of Canada, Ontario, and Quebec for launching an update of the feasibility studies done in the 1990s.

London has the fourth busiest VIA Rail station in the country. We used to be the third busiest. We provide easy connections to both urban and rural communities, including eight trains daily to and from Toronto with links to Sarnia and Windsor. While we value this service, it remains far from ideal when compared with the speed and frequency of European or Asian train services and it makes daily commuting more difficult than it needs to be.

London City Council has this week confirmed that London will participate with several other corridor cities in a socio-economic study of the impact of high-speed rail on our community and the other communities on the corridor. Our city, the London Economic Development Corporation, and High Speed Rail Canada are, in fact, commencing a public symposium in London on the benefits of high-speed rail.

The Federation of Canadian Municipalities, FCM, has long supported high-speed rail and recognizes the potential contribution to the long-term competitiveness of Canada's economic infrastructure.

The Lawrence National Centre for Policy and Management at London's prestigious Richard Ivey School of Business, led by Dianne Cunningham, held a transportation policy conference in March 2008 with a variety of senior government officials, experts, and a range of private sector companies to inform policy-makers on the benefits of the Ontario-Quebec continental gateway and trade corridor and the importance of high-speed rail.

The one-day living zone concept was proposed at that conference, a concept whereby individuals can live and commute on a daily basis within a 400-kilometre distance. Participants supported the creation of a process to evaluate who would be part of a high-speed rail corridor and agreed that high-speed rail would increase economic opportunities, enhance quality of life, reduce pressure of mounting population within major cities, promote less use of private vehicles, help smaller cities to grow, and would lead to the removal of passenger trains from current track, leaving them dedicated to a more efficient flow of freight traffic.

London happens to be a member of the Southwest Economic Alliance, or SWEA, which represents the economic interests of 2.5 million people in southwest Ontario. SWEA has identified high-speed rail and rail infrastructure in southwestern Ontario as a top priority.

Now, how could high-speed rail help London and southwestern Ontario? Well, recently London City Council endorsed an economic strategy to further develop London as a trade and transportation hub. The advent of high-speed rail service would strengthen the London and southwestern Ontario economy and open new opportunities for both retention and expansion of economic opportunities in London and the surrounding region. We're strategically located on the Highway 401 corridor near its junction with Highways 402 and 403 and connections to Sarnia and Windsor and the borders beyond.

High-speed rail would relieve congestion on our highways, particularly those around the Greater Toronto Area, reducing the need for highway expansion and leading to reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and improvements in air quality. A high-speed rail service between Windsor and Quebec City would enhance mobility of labour, not just in southwestern Ontario but throughout southern Ontario and Quebec. It would stimulate tourism, open up new markets for trade and investment, and create new high-skill construction jobs.

As was pointed out by the deputy minister to this committee last week, European studies show high-speed rail has the potential to create economic development opportunities for smaller communities, not just larger ones. It will contribute to Canada's global competitiveness. High-speed rail has also proven to be the safest and most reliable form of travel.

With respect to demand, according to Stats Can, there are more than 2,000 daily commutes from London to the GTA. Last month VIA Rail reported almost 35,000 passenger on-offs at our VIA station in our city. We have a potential catchment area around London of over one million people. We welcome the demand studies that are being conducted, and we have just endorsed our participation in similar studies. We favour implementing all sections of high-speed rail service between Windsor and Quebec City in order to amplify and maximize the overall benefits, because we believe the complete corridor will be greater than the sum of its parts.

In summary, we favour high-speed rail rather than higher-speed rail. We favour full implementation of high-speed rail service along the entire corridor rather than a phased approach. We urge the governments of Canada, Quebec, and Ontario to consider the environmental benefit as well as the full socio-economic impact of high-speed rail on the provincial, regional, and, in particular, our local economies in our communities.

Thank you for your consideration. I look forward to your questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you.

Mr. Volpe.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Hopcroft, first of all, without any sarcasm, congratulations on a great public relations job on behalf of your city.

[Grant Hopcroft]

Thank you.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

I thought you were going to leave the floor open to the guys from the Teamsters, because they did a great job in advancing their membership and the kind of work they do. It's refreshing to hear people come and speak about their place, and it is helpful to committee members to understand why this should be considered as an economic development project as well as a nation building project. Sometimes we don't get out of our own little communities until we hear what everybody else's communities are about. People in London missed a great opportunity today. If they had put off their symposium till tomorrow night, they would have had a guest speaker from this committee who would have just shocked everybody there. But unfortunately, that guest speaker won't be able to be there, because he's actually here, and it isn't me.

Light-heartedness aside, Mr. Hopcroft, you have raised something that others have just alluded to, and that is the creation of hubs along this corridor. Let's talk about the Ontario-Quebec line for now and switch to the Alberta line in a moment. Creating hubs along this corridor from Windsor all the way up to Quebec would be a great economic advantage. You talked specifically about London's role as a centre that would serve as an economic transportation hub. I took from what you said that you wanted London to be thought of as a model for longer-range commuting. People could live where they currently live and go to work in places like Toronto, 190 kilometres away. They could actually commute to Toronto, or to Windsor, which is almost as far, about 170 kilometres away.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

It's 178 kilometres.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

So you'd have this concept of people staying in regional centres and still working in even larger centres. Have you thought in terms of what that would do to property values, just as one consideration, locally as well as in larger centres?

Please don't take as long with your answer as I did with my question, because I want to ask the other guys something as well.

[Grant Hopcroft]

I'll do my best. Thank you for the question.

We certainly do favour having the capacity for people to commute those distances on a daily basis and to do that without having to consider moving their families. It disrupts our local economies. While we support labour mobility, we're often faced with situations in which professionals who have highly specialized skills are torn between continuing to live in a regional centre or moving to Toronto or Montreal. They can have both with high-speed rail, because it makes that commute so much simpler. They can service their clients throughout the region from their home base. We feel there's value in that.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

You heard the people who preceded you in your chair. We're talking about competitive advantages and disadvantages. I'm assuming that because you represent the economic development department of your city that you probably consulted with the Richard Ivey School of Business as well as with your own economic department about competitive advantages and disadvantages. Does that not inhibit your enthusiasm for this?

[Grant Hopcroft]

Not at all. We feel that we can compete. We feel that there's benefit in being able to have that kind of competition at the local level.

I want to address your question about property values. Just before coming down here, I did check, and currently the average price of a single family resale home, as of the last quarter of last year, was $383,000 in Toronto. It was $204,000 in London. I think one of the benefits of high-speed rail is that it gives people the opportunity to enjoy a higher quality of life within something similar to or better than the commute they face now, without having to pay the high cost of living, for example, in the GTA or the greater Montreal area. It helps our regional economies survive.

We all suffer, when we're outside those growth centres, in some sense, from a hollowing out of our communities. Creating those opportunities not only helps the hubs, it helps the smaller communities that feed into those hubs, because it brings them closer to opportunities and jobs as well.