Transport Committee on Dec. 6th, 2010

[Chuck Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Thank you, and I appreciate that. Of course, in my former portfolio I was aware of this as well.

Manitoba has never given us a written proposal saying they want to make this their priority in Manitoba. I know they want to have something done to it, and don't we all, but the estimates that I've seen just from newspaper reports and so on say it's a $1.4 billion proposal. And for Manitoba to do that, I would think they would have to make that their one and only issue in Manitoba, as far as matching funds is concerned from the federal government and so on. They've never done that, and I understand why. It's just such an expensive project.

Everybody is hoping there is something that can be done. That's why we continue to peck away at it, improve the winter roads, do the other things that can try to improve access. But the truth is it's such an expensive project that it's never been able to work its way up to the top of the priority list, because there are so many things that need to be done in Manitoba and elsewhere. So it's an extremely expensive project. If it was to be the priority project for Manitoba, then they would tell us that, I suppose. They have not done that.

While we've had exchanges of ideas and so on, we've never had a written proposal on that. It's never been the number one ask. And for something of this magnitude, it would have to be their priority and they would have to almost do this in absence of almost everything else, because it is such a big project. It is so big.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

I certainly appreciate the feedback. I would also say that these communities are dealing with flu outbreaks that are killing people year after year. We're talking about the value of lives, and lives that shouldn't be lost to the flu in a country like Canada.

I think we all know Indian Affairs gives a great deal of money towards a winter road system that is lasting less and less as a result of climate change. This situation, on the hands of the federal government is, I would argue, simply unsustainable in terms of the human cost. Perhaps we need to look at reallocating funds from the winter road system going towards a more permanent base, which I know certainly some first nations that are further along the planning stages have been talking about as well.

My final question is this. Mr. Merrifield, given the real concern that exists in rural and northern communities with respect to the lack of funding that trickles down to smaller post offices, which is resulting in cuts in service--I'm not saying the elimination of postal offices, but certainly the failure to replace retired workers, the inability to retain workers, the contracting out of positions that I can certainly say has resulted in the lack of mail delivery in communities that I represent, and I certainly echo concerns from rural and northern communities--I'd like to hear what kinds of commitments are being made by the government with respect to the support that Canada Post requires in delivering a service that is quite different in rural and northern Canada.

[Rob Merrifield, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

That's a very good question. I appreciate it, because I come from a rural area as well.

When I first became responsible for Canada Post, we worked on a charter that locked in service obligations between Canada Post and rural Canadians--and all Canadians. So the commitment is there that it not be compromised. There is a moratorium in the charter on closures of post offices, particularly in rural areas, that they not close. There are some very small ones, because of fire or they can't find a postmaster who has it in a home. Sometimes they have to go through a procedure to engage the municipality and do everything they possibly can.

I can give example after example of how they have followed that charter to make sure the mail gets through in rural Canada and is not compromised. The service obligation should give you and all Canadians comfort to know that Canada Post sees their obligation to Canadians as an important part of why they are a crown corporation. They will continue to fulfill that. I see no attempt by Canada Post to compromise the service in any way.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you.

Mr. Jean.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'll be sharing my time with Ms. Brown, if that is okay with you.

First of all, Minister Strahl, I'd like to compliment you on your French. I noticed a sort of northern Alberta accent. I understood every word, so I was quite impressed by that. It's the first time I've heard a presenter use French that I could understand at the podium.

[Chuck Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon, BC]

That's not a good sign, necessarily.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

I would like to comment briefly on the green infrastructure fund. Maybe Mr. McCallum missed it, but it is actually a five-year program and not part of the stimulus package itself.

I want to compliment you. I heard from some Canadians, especially regarding the northwest transmission line, which is an investment in northern British Columbia. It was well received and is doing great things for cleaning up our environment, but also for investing in northwestern British Columbia. I understand that was an NDP riding, by the way.

I have also heard a lot of compliments on the Mayo B project--$71 million under the green infrastructure fund. Indeed, the Government of Yukon is pursuing that. I understand it has taken a few communities off diesel and has a return on investment for Canadian taxpayers of somewhere around eight years just on delivery costs of the diesel itself.

My questions are more for Mr. Merrifield on Marine Atlantic.

Before I get onto that, I just want to say congratulations on the extension of the infrastructure deadline. That has been well received by the FCM and other groups. It is not only fair, reasonable, and flexible; it is also practical, being at the end of the construction season. I thought that was very smart.

Minister Merrifield, you mentioned that Marine Atlantic was on life support before our government came into power in 2006. Can you explain a little more about that system of life support? I have had a lot of input from people from Atlantic Canada, not just on the constitutional requirement of the constitutional service, but also other parts of Marine Atlantic and other parts of delivery in that area between the different provinces.

[Rob Merrifield, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Sure. It's not something any government would be proud of. When we first came into office, the on-time performance of Marine Atlantic was down around 10% during the summer months--peak time. That was because it was an older fleet that you couldn't rely on, and there was a lack of extra capacity to catch up. You're always going to have problems with weather, delays, and so on; the people of Atlantic Canada understand that and have learned to live with it. But if you don't have any capacity to catch up and you have an old, deteriorating fleet, you are in serious trouble. They're on life support.

On top of that, there were onshore facilities that were depleting and becoming very run down. So with the dollars we got prior to 2010, we brought on the Atlantic Vision. Thank goodness. It's still not good, but it has brought service up to about 43% on-time during the summer. This summer was a little better than that, and they had record capacity of truck traffic this summer.

We still won't solve the problems of Marine Atlantic until we get new vessels. I never mentioned this, but we not only have two new vessels that have 40% more capacity in the belly than the Smallwood or the Caribou, but we also have the Atlantic Vision. It is a beautiful vessel that is very large and will be an impressive vessel for tourism out to Argentia. There is also the $18 million retrofit of the Leif Ericson. The entire fleet of four vessels will be new or completely refitted. It is a massive undertaking to be able to put those dollars appropriately into Marine Atlantic and rebuild it.

The onshore facilities--their docks, terminals, ramps, equipment, and IT services--are all included in the dollars that will go to Marine Atlantic, so by spring.... We were talking at the beginning about a beautiful relationship between the government, Marine Atlantic, and the people of Newfoundland and Labrador and Atlantic Canada, to be able to facilitate what they need to move and grow forward, as far as the capacity demands for this service.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

Thank you.

Ms. Brown.

[Lois Brown, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Minister, I too would like to say thank you very much for the extension. I sent a note to my mayors just after you made the announcement, and I got a message back from the mayor, Tony Van Bynen, from Newmarket, who said “Great news. Thank you.” One of the projects they had undertaken and that was on track had come across some environmental difficulties that were unknown when the project was thought of, and this is going to give them some breathing room.

There was also a Facebook comment from one of my constituents, who is the executive director of the Newmarket Soccer Club, thanking me on behalf of the club. Once they got their project started, and as the dollars started to shift, they discovered some things they could do, which had not been part of the package, that would make a permanent facility for the soccer club. This is going to give the club some breathing room for their project to make some long-term decisions that will certainly put a permanent location in place.

Minister, you said that time doesn't allow you to talk about all the initiatives at Transport Canada. I wonder if you could expand on those initiatives you're undertaking. Is this part of the $42.6 million?

[Chuck Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon, BC]

The $42.6 million?

[Lois Brown, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Yes. I wonder what areas are being invested in with that $42.6 million and if it's part of these initiatives.

[Chuck Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon, BC]

It's almost always safe to say that no matter what the federal government is doing in this department, they start off with the safety and security of Canadians as the number one priority, whether we're talking about the long-term investments on improving security systems at airports and other transportation systems, improved environmental outcomes for other modes of transportation, ship-to-shore power, the emission exclusion zones on both coasts, the new arrangements on the Great Lakes when it comes to improving air quality and emissions standards, and so on. We start with safety and security as our number one priority, and then we get into environmental concerns and trying to improve the outcomes there.

Of course, on the Infrastructure Canada side, it's already been noted that they've done stellar work on not only getting the money out the door as quickly as the bills come in--and we can't do it more quickly than that--but as the bills come in we get that money out tout de suite.

We do an incredible job of evaluating these projects right up to the last minute. All members of Parliament gave me their last-minute projects and asked if I could get this done in the last couple of weeks. Just to assure people, as long as they came in ahead of the cut-off, those projects are being considered. We still have a handful to give the yea or nay to.

So the allocation of the funding goes to everything from soup to nuts. But it starts out with safety and security. On the transport side it moves into environmental protection and improvements, and on the infrastructure side it's just simply trying to get this money out as quickly as possible and urging the provinces as we....

The only thing I would add to your earlier comments is that proponents who want to take advantage of this extension should be sure to look at the rules. This isn't just a blank cheque. You have to fulfill certain things to get the seven-month extension. You have to let us know about the project. So don't just show up on March 31 and hope for the best. Go on the website and get that done.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Mr. McCallum.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm just going to follow up on one last question, and then the rest of the time will be taken by Judy Sgro.

I have a very simple question that I don't think you've answered. In the case of projects that were rescoped or reduced in size because of the deadline, now that the deadline has been extended, will those people have an opportunity to go back to the original size?

[Chuck Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Projects are rescoped for all kinds of reasons. It could be that somebody ran into a problem on an environmental issue and they just can't do the project as originally planned, or they may say they don't have enough money or enough time to do it. We've allowed them the flexibility to rescope it for any number of reasons, but just as we're not going to go back and revisit either the applications or the rationale behind them, we're not going to go project by project on the extension.

The extension is carte blanche and it affects whoever wants it, but the decision and the cut-off as to the projects that were selected is also final. So whatever state they are in, as long as they have been approved they can continue. But we're not going to start another round of re-evaluation and rejigging of projects, because it's simply not possible.

We have thousands upon thousands of projects. So they are what they are. They don't have to have an excuse to extend the project for seven months, nor can we re-evaluate each project and say let's start with another application.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Thank you.

Judy.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. McCallum.

What is the criteria for some of these projects to get the extension?

[Chuck Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon, BC]

It's pretty straightforward. They have to have started the project. It's the shovels in the ground story; in other words, they have to have done some work on the project that has incurred some federal expenses. That's the first criteria.

They have to give us the bills to date, so by March 31 they have to let us know how much they've spent of the dollars we would be responsible for. We want to know the status of that particular project.

They have to give us assurance that it can be done in the seven-month period. They have to give us an attestation from an engineer that in his or her professional opinion the project can be done within that seven-month period, so we don't end up with the same problem by October 31 of next year. Then they have to give regular updates as to the progress on that, which they generally do anyway, but they have to do that during the extension period.

I think I'm leaving one out. John, could you complete the list for me?

[John Forster]

I was going to mention as well that it's posted on our website, so you can read it right there. All the provinces and municipalities are aware of it.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Until the Liberals did such a great job at pushing for an extension—I felt I had to throw that in, since it's been mentioned on all sides, so we'll just make sure everybody says the same thing—there were many municipalities that spent more money on projects than they probably would have because they were concerned about getting to that deadline and the firmness of it.

I would hope that created a few more jobs in the process, by keeping the feet to the fire. But how many projects are still on that list that you would predict are not going to be finished by March 31?

[Chuck Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon, BC]

I don't think we can predict what we--

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

How many do you have on the list you're currently looking at, which is what helped you to support the Liberal motion?

[Chuck Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon, BC]

I hear what you're saying about the Liberal motion, but certainly once all the data was in, it was clear there was a small percentage—and it really is a small percentage of projects—that might not get finished by March 31.

But for people to take advantage of it...this is self-selecting. Many people will say “I just want to get it done so I can turn my bills in to get paid.” They might do that, or they might say—and maybe the PRECO projects are a good example, in Quebec—“I'm all done. I just need to put the last layer of pavement down, and I'll do that in July when it's hot and it's easy to pave.”

Many of those projects are going to take advantage of it, but it's self-selecting. That's why I say I know it won't cost the taxpayers more. There's no more for the project. There's no more in the budget for it. What it does is give them freedom to make that choice.

There are responsibilities and obligations that go with it, so we still think the vast majority of projects will be done by March 31. But there's flexibility and fairness for those who want to and need it, and they can extend it for particular types of projects.

That being said, everyone agreed going in that we've got to get this done—it has to be done by March 31—and they all signed, with documentation from an engineer, saying they could. They promised to get this done. Unfortunately, for some of them, whether it be environmental problems or a union strike or who knows what, other things came up and they didn't get them done.

We're still satisfied that the overwhelming majority will be done by March 31.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you.

Monsieur Gaudet.