Evidence of meeting #10 for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was area.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:55 p.m.
NDP
Jamie Nicholls NDP Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC
Well, Mr. Chair, I'd just like to say that from statements in the House made by members of the government, it's obvious that they're not going to be supporting this bill eventually, no matter what questions we ask here; however, I don't think their constituents would necessarily agree with them.
I have one simple question for Mr. McCuaig before continuing: does Metrolinx offer Sunday service?
5 p.m.
NDP
5 p.m.
NDP
Jamie Nicholls NDP Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC
Yes. Well, I'm sure that people in Penticton, B.C., might want to have Sunday service. They currently have Sunday service on only one of their lines.
I think the advantages of having a public transit strategy would be, as you said, to share best practices in innovation and high-quality standards across the country, whether you're a large centre or a small centre. Coming up with a permanent investment plan, a federal funding mechanism, working with all levels of government, and establishing accountability measures would mean that all areas in Canada would have the same advantages that Metrolinx has in terms of the partnerships it has built and would benefit from the knowledge of Metrolinx.
I'll look at another city, Cochrane, Alberta, the second-largest and fastest growing centre in the country. They want bus rapid transit to Calgary. Mayor Truper McBride has said that considerable work needs to be undertaken on both the functional and economical aspects of transit. He went on to say, “A vibrant city is based on a strong, vibrant transit system and in every case those are [paid] for, in part, by senior orders of government”. He said, “Cochrane is a difficult community for transit because [what] I'd call...poor planning in the past has led to this very pod-like community, and transit doesn't operate too well because there is backtracking...”.
If we had a national public transit strategy, do you think Metrolinx would be able to contribute a lot of its knowledge in terms of transit planning to the rest of the country, to other agencies across the country?
5 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Metrolinx
Absolutely: there's great value in sharing what we've learned and also what we've learned from others. I think that's one of the things that is important in the transportation business: to learn from the successes--and sometimes the failures--of other jurisdictions.
5 p.m.
NDP
Jamie Nicholls NDP Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC
I have a final question. Transit users in south Winnipeg are facing fare increases. When there's no dedicated funding for transit, we often find that the burden is passed on to users in these centres. Without dedicated funding, isn't an increase in transit fares one of the only mechanisms that a transit corporation can use to get the capital it needs?
5 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Metrolinx
Typically the transit fares are used virtually exclusively for operating costs. Transit agencies look to other orders of government to provide contributions towards capital, so by and large you see the fare box covering the operating costs of the transit service.
5 p.m.
NDP
Jamie Nicholls NDP Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC
For low-income users who have no choice—they don't have cars or any other methods of transport—would you agree that raising fares decreases the ridership or at least makes a big dent in their pocketbook when they're already struggling with difficult financial situations?
5 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Metrolinx
Yes. It's important to have affordable transportation systems for different parts of the community. There's no question that it's something that Metrolinx and every other transit agency thinks about when it's looking at its cost structures.
5 p.m.
NDP
Jamie Nicholls NDP Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC
Would Metrolinx agree that having a transit strategy in place would allow us, as a country, to plan for initiatives such as subsidizing bus passes and other things such as that? Do you think that kind of planning could be done with other transit agencies across the country to discuss what's gone on, say with BC Transit's U-Pass, or other initiatives undertaken by other transit corporations?
5 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Metrolinx
It provides a venue and an opportunity for all orders of government to sit down and talk about what are the initiatives that could be pursued to make transit more attractive. I think that is an important part of any kind of a venue where the various orders of government sit down to talk about a subject matter.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Wild Rose, AB
Thank you very much.
This has been very informative today, and I appreciate your being here.
Some of my questions have been touched on to some degree, but I guess it still leaves me with a little grey. It's a very light shade of grey, but there is still some grey there, so I want to get some clarification on a few things.
Metrolinx, I understand that affiliated, we'll say, with the Government of Ontario. What department are you under?
5:05 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Metrolinx
We're a provincial crown agency. My board of directors reports to the Ontario Minister of Transportation.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Wild Rose, AB
Okay, so you're a provincial crown agency: how are the municipalities involved in the governance of it? They must be involved in some way.
Obviously you're working with them in terms of the planning. I know you touched on it a bit, but I'm left a little bit unsure as to how the governance works on that. Are there representatives from the different municipalities who sit on the governance board of the agency? How does that work, exactly?
5:05 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Metrolinx
Currently the way the board of directors is structured is that the province appoints the board from public-minded individuals from across the greater Toronto and Hamilton region. There are no direct municipal representatives.
How we work with the municipalities is that every day, almost every hour, we have some dialogue that's going on. I'll use an example. In York Region, we're building a bus rapid transit system. We're building it using York Region as our delivery agent. They're the ones who are out there constructing the actual service with their contractor partners on our behalf. We own and will be responsible for the ongoing operation, but they are our agent of delivery.
We have a whole range of different kinds of partnership models where we work very, very closely with the municipalities.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Wild Rose, AB
So there are various models, but in some cases the municipality is actually responsible for the operation. You've developed the infrastructure itself, whether it be provincially funded.... I suspect in that some cases there's probably municipal funding that goes into that--
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Wild Rose, AB
--and there probably has been some federal funding, whether it be a gas tax or otherwise, that has gone into it as well. Is there private sector involvement as well?
5:05 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Metrolinx
In different municipalities there are different levels of private sector involvement. York Region delivers its bus services using a series of private contractors. I mentioned that GO Transit delivers its rail services through private contractors. You see a variety of different models, used both by Metrolinx and by the local municipalities, in the delivery of their service.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Wild Rose, AB
So what you're finding, essentially, is that it depends on the different priorities of the various municipalities that are involved in terms of what projects go forward. You have different involvements, whether they be private sector involvements in some cases, and you always have the involvement of the municipality, of course, in some way. It's all determined, really, on the priorities of the municipality.
So it's not the federal government, or in this case, the provincial government, and certainly not the federal NDP, trying to determine this for Cochrane, Alberta, Penticton, B.C., Winnipeg, Manitoba, or Saint-Lazare, Quebec, for example. You're not having a higher level of government trying to determine the priorities of various municipalities. It's based on the priorities of the citizens and the municipalities involved and based on the different models you have. You've essentially tried a number of different models and you do it on that basis.
Is it correct that the priorities are set based on sort of the municipalities...?
5:05 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Metrolinx
We have the regional transportation plan and the prioritization process that I've spoken about. We do have some projects where there is federal funding involved, and we have governance arrangements with the federal government in those situations.
For example, under the Building Canada fund, we have committees of federal public servants and Metrolinx officials who are involved in projects like the Mississauga Transitway, which is a cost-shared project. In some cases, because of the way the Building Canada fund works, there is direct involvement of the federal department in some of those projects.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Wild Rose, AB
Yes, but what it still boils down to is that every project has to be looked at and determinations have to be made as to the operational money or the infrastructure side of it.
But it all has to be decided based on the priorities of the various areas and what will serve them the best. That's sort of what I understand from what you said. Looking at Canada as an example, certainly for you, when you talk about the plan for the greater Toronto and Hamilton area, obviously I would be interested in your thoughts on that, but I can't imagine that you would suggest that this model might work in a more rural part of the country, for example.
As an example, in my riding I have one community of about 43,000 people. Some do commute to Calgary and there is some transit, which was set up by the community to get people into Calgary and back for their work. There's also a private sector company that provides for that community.
Outside of that area, I have another population of about 90,000 to 100,000, spread out over 27 different communities. Obviously if you do the math on that, you're averaging about 3,000 to 4,000 people per community. It's mostly a rural area, with farms and oil and gas, so obviously a public transit type of solution probably is not something you're going to see in that type of area.
You have a model that's working very well, from the sound of it, for the greater Toronto and Hamilton area, but would you suggest that this necessarily would be something that would be duplicated all over the country?
5:10 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Metrolinx
I think the issues in small rural and small urban communities are very different from the issues in large cities and city regions like Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal. I think you need to match the solution to the community.
In places like Cochrane, Ontario, if I could use that as an example, there are transit needs. It's a large, dispersed northern community with some urban elements to it, and some rural elements as well, with an aging population, different socio-economic groups who don't have the same access to private automobiles as others, and young people. There's a whole variety of reasons why, even in smaller communities, there's a need for mobility solutions.
I guess the important point is to scale your solutions to your community and come up with the right approach for that locality.
