Transport Committee on Dec. 2nd, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

I accept your position, but it has been the rule of the committee to allow each member to allocate their time to the next person.

Mr. Kennedy, you have three minutes.

[Gerard Kennedy, Liberal, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate that you should not be challenged once you make a decision.

Again, Mr. Minister, you've had a cut of $1 billion to your spending this year. You said everything was on track. Clearly it's not on track: can you give us the reasons why? And can you perhaps give us some documentation on why you got your budget cut by $1 billion from the plan you had just two months ago?

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Well, it's a 24-month stimulus initiative to build infrastructure. Obviously, in every day, every week, and every month of that 24-month plan, more will happen.

For example, the City of Toronto didn't make an eligible application...the only province in the country that made an ineligible application and didn't file it online. We worked with the city—it took several additional months because of that—and came to an agreement for 500 projects that would be funded. For example, we're giving $20 million to Maple Leaf Gardens, which we announced yesterday. They are not going to be able to spend $10 million of that before April 1, so we'll re-profile it to the following year, but it all has to be spent by April 1, 2011.

I think what you'll see is that every month there'll be more money spent than the previous month. A disproportionate amount of the work will be back-ended. Obviously you have to put out tenders, obviously you have to do architectural plans, and obviously you have to get the required permits and project management. That is less expensive than once you get the shovels in the ground. But all the funds are available.

[Gerard Kennedy, Liberal, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Minister—through you, Mr. Chair—you are $1 billion behind schedule. In the applications that were made, 73% were to have started by this fall and 73% said they wanted to start this fall, but your political wrangling delayed and delayed the approvals. There are all kinds of projects that wanted to be under way now. They didn't want to be under way later.

The 73% is what your own—

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Give me an example of political wrangling.

[Gerard Kennedy, Liberal, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

The political wrangling is that you have only recently announced billions of dollars in B.C. and in Quebec. You still have half of the money to announce in British Columbia because you can't come to an agreement with that government. You have all kinds of money to announce in Quebec. I understand that the not-for-profit program in Ontario—

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

In British Columbia—

[Gerard Kennedy, Liberal, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

You asked for examples, Minister, and I'd be happy to address—

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

There's no political wrangling going on there.

[Gerard Kennedy, Liberal, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

In the not-for-profit program in Ontario, you put out a request for proposals in the middle of the summer, in August. Where is the announcement on that, Mr. Minister?

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

We'll be making an announcement in the coming days.

[Gerard Kennedy, Liberal, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

I was hoping you might reply to the point I was asking about.

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

I'll give you two examples. With respect to British Columbia, the one you mentioned, they went into an election campaign. We got a substantial amount done before they went into the election campaign, which I think was good news.

In British Columbia, we got more money done in the first two months than in any other province. Then there was an election for some five or six weeks and then two or three weeks before there was a cabinet shuffle. The new minister obviously wanted to take a month to get briefed up, so it did provide some delay.

There was a bit of delay in Nova Scotia when the government was defeated. We got a substantial amount done before that and a significant amount done since then. This is 10 times faster.

[Gerard Kennedy, Liberal, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

You could have done it through the gas tax.

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

We could have done it through the gas tax, but we chose not to do that, and you voted confidence in---

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

I'm going to Mr. Laframboise.

[Gerard Kennedy, Liberal, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

It's failing all over the country.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Order, please.

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

You voted confidence in this 18 times.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Order.

I'm going to ask members to respect the chair; I'm going to ignore their application for speaking again, if that's okay.

If you're going to have an argument, have it outside. Don't have it in this committee.

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

We made a decision.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Monsieur Laframboise, it's your comment.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Minister, I want to make sure we understand each other with respect to my last comment. What I want is for all of Quebec's municipalities to have the same opportunity to submit applications under the programs. Obviously, a number of municipalities underwent changes in administration. It is similar to when we change governments, as you know. For at least 30 days, mayors did not make any political decisions because it was against the law. City councils did not meet before the elections, and there are still budget preparations and so forth. All of that delays things. I know that you would like us to discuss it later with your officials, but I just want all municipalities to have an equal opportunity.

I know that in some municipalities, the administration did not change, and so they are able to submit applications. However, you need to understand that in a number of municipalities in Quebec, the administration did change, in other words, governments changed, and, clearly, they have to review all of the files again.

These municipalities run the risk of being penalized. That is why the Union des municipalités du Québec and the Fédération québécoise des municipalités are asking you for more time to submit applications, without having to postpone the project completion date. I know we will look at that later.

I have another question. You asked for supplementary estimates in the amount of $18 million for the bridge corporation, and earlier you mentioned the Mercier bridge. Is all of that $18 million solely for the Mercier bridge project, or is it also being used for other bridges in Montreal?

[Rob Merrifield, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Just for the Mercier bridge?

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Is the $18 million requested only for the Mercier bridge, or are there other amounts for other bridge corporation bridges? Is there money for the Champlain bridge?