Thanks for the question.
I think it's a really important point to look at the need for some national strategies for how we deal with our public transportation requirements in the nation. I would say that a principle-based approach for dealing with a national transit strategy is something that the committee should be thinking very clearly about.
It's important to have a broad-based consensus about the need for investment in public transit and to recognize nationally the importance of public transit to our economy and to our quality of life in our urban centres. It's really important to take a principle-based approach, without a national strategy getting into the details of local decision-making in terms of what makes sense in a particular regional or community context.
Here are some of the principles you might want to think about in the context of national transit strategies.
One would be about the need to be thinking in the long term. This might be something that you look to the local community or the regional transportation authority for in asking where is their long-term strategy or plan for the area.
Another is predictability in terms of an ongoing investment in transit and transportation. Flexibility for local choice is another one: in the end, this is all about giving residents in communities choice about how they move around the community. Another is accountability: it's really important to give the tools to local communities and regional authorities and then hold them accountable for delivering on the outcomes that they said they would deliver on.
Another principle is to have decisions made at the lowest possible level, because that's where you get the right match between the needs of the community and the nature of the projects and the investments. You've mentioned transparency in decision-making, and there should also be an evidence-based decision-making process so that you can demonstrate why you're making choices between different projects.
I think those are important principles, which we've been trying to apply in developing the Big Move in the greater Toronto and Hamilton area and in trying to implement it over the past few years. If we are studying a national transit strategy, I think those are elements that would be important for such a strategy.