Transport Committee on Nov. 23rd, 2011

[Taki Sarantakis]

No. Obviously within a geographic catchment area, where people live and work in the same kind of metropolitan area, it's public transit. But if you're talking about visiting a city as opposed to working in a city, it's largely not considered to be public transit.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

I guess the concern of these small regional municipalities is that they view that as their public transit. If someone in a small rural area has a bus go by once a day, that's their public transit. That's the only way they can get to the bigger municipalities to see a specialist, go to a hospital, or go to a sporting event. When those services die, they look to the federal government for help. Are you saying that's not our role?

[Taki Sarantakis]

I'm saying if that service is provided by a public sector operator, it's very difficult for the Government of Canada to subsidize that. If, however, it's a service that would be operated in cooperation with the two municipalities at issue, in the example that you provided, that certainly would be eligible for funding under our programs.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

I have to interrupt and go to Monsieur Coderre.

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will continue to talk about a specific case.

There are requests from Quebec or Canada for the West Island train. This means that the neighbourhoods of the City of Montreal will be affected. There are also the cities on the island. It's clear that people are going to go to work and are going to live on the West Island. Do you think that's public transportation?

[Taki Sarantakis]

Yes, absolutely, because the service must be provided by a public organization and is intended for moving the people who are working.

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

It's a structuring project. I simply want us to understand a few things about the future of the infrastructure program.

When you appeared before this committee the first time, you justifiably highlighted a dual reality. The first is that of the infrastructures that already exist and that are becoming obsolete. The second is that of the new infrastructures that will eventually be put in place.

In your options, you talk about a dedicated infrastructure fund that could deal with one or the other. We have to deal with it because it's obsolete, it's very important. I'm not talking about the Champlain bridge, where there will be a new infrastructure. At that point…

there is so much money you can pay.

How do you see this, from a policy standpoint? I think it's important.

Can you tell me about the principle of flexibility within this program? There is a rural reality and an urban reality. On the urban side, I might, for example, want to dedicate money to a West Island train because I need another railway line. That's one thing. If, at the same time, I have a problem with a transnational roadway and cannot set aside money for it, I have a choice to make, I have a problem.

How do you see this?

[Taki Sarantakis]

Historically, the Government of Canada has put in place new infrastructures, which is still the case today. As for the future, it's an important public policy issue. In the future, we will have many more challenges concerning the rehabilitation of infrastructures. It's something the Government of Canada has to consider. It isn't enough to simply ask whether the money will be available for new infrastructures. We are also responsible for ensuring that the infrastructures will be maintained at an appropriately safe level.

As for flexibility, we have a lot of programs with different objectives, such as the gas tax that could be used to cover the costs of the basic needs of the municipalities.

In general, though, the government supports the construction of new infrastructures.

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

One of the problems, when you look at the cost and the best policy to apply this, is that you will have some issues where it's better to refurbish an infrastructure than build a new one, for all the many reasons.

[Taki Sarantakis]

Yes, and we do that now, but it's under the guise of material rehabilitation.

For instance, if somebody comes forward and says, “We want to upgrade this transit system, and at the end of the day it will still serve between point A and point B and will still only carry 100 people per day”, that's more or less maintenance. But if somebody comes and says, “We want to rehabilitate this line so that instead of running four trains a day, we'll be able to run six trains a day, and instead of being able to carry 50,000 people we'll be able to carry 75,000 people”, that's an increase in capacity, and we treat that like a new project.

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

One of the issues will be of course all the “dedicated” issues. Of course you can have the gas tax, and it's useful and it's necessary, but there is so much you can spend. Of course it will all depend on what the cities and the provinces want to focus on.

The federal government is supposed to be there as a facilitator, but nevertheless, if we're talking about a dedicated fund, I do remember that in the first one in 1993, then we spoke about un projet structurant. So between a municipality and the provincial government was the maître d'oeuvre, and then Ottawa was there to provide if the two organized themselves.

In this case, can we have what we call…

I'm talking about flexibility because there is a difference between following up on what a municipality wants and a structuring project that may affect several municipalities at the same time. If you have just one envelope and you take all that into consideration, the per capita, and so on. That is why the dedicated fund is important.

Could we have, like at that time, an infrastructure fund with many components? There could be the "public transportation" component, the "structuring project" component and the "rehabilitation" component, for example.

Is this the kind of option you consider in your discussions?

[Taki Sarantakis]

This is an important question, and I think it will be a central question in the consultations for the next infrastructure plan.

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you.

Mr. Richards.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I appreciate the witnesses' being here with us today.

I want to start by doing a quick review of the projects under the economic action plan. Obviously a number of projects would have fallen under transit or transit-related projects under the economic action plan. A vast array of different types of projects were funded under the economic action plan in municipalities all across the country in every province, every region, in various types of centres. Obviously I would know that some of those projects were certainly transit and transit-related.

Can you tell me how much money was spent under the economic action plan on transit or transit-related projects?

[Taki Sarantakis]

Absolutely.

Under the economic action plan there were two components. The first was the acceleration of the existing Building Canada fund moneys and that, in terms of transit, was in the order of $2.3 billion.

The second component of the economic action plan was the introduction of the infrastructure stimulus fund, and under that approximately $240 million went towards public transit.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Okay. And those were projects that were determined to be priorities by the various municipalities, correct?

[Taki Sarantakis]

Correct. They were—

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

So they were projects that municipalities felt were important initiatives for their communities as opposed to other types of priorities they may have had. They looked at those and said, “These are the priorities for us.” It wasn't the federal government deciding for them that these were the priorities. It wasn't requiring a national strategy; it was the municipalities themselves saying that these were the projects that were important to them, and that was what was funded because of those reasons. Is that correct?

[Taki Sarantakis]

Absolutely, because one of the design features of our programs, with the exception of the gas tax, is that municipalities have to put up a portion of the funding. They put forward their priorities, because nobody wants to fund not their own priorities.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Can you give me two or three examples? Try to use examples from different regions, if you can, and maybe from different types of centres, maybe one or two examples from a larger centre—more of an urban-type centre—and maybe some of the smaller centres that would have transit-related projects.

Obviously I know there would be some differences in those projects, but maybe you could give me some of the ones that you feel would be great examples of very innovative projects that municipalities came up with.

[Taki Sarantakis]

In terms of the larger ones, two really stand out for me. One is the Spadina subway extension in Toronto, which is actually one of the largest projects in the history of the Government of Canada. That was also, I think, our first economic stimulus project in terms of the acceleration of the Building Canada fund.

The second is a transit project that's just now under way, the Evergreen transit line in British Columbia, which again is very strategic in terms of hooking up the Lower Mainland.

In terms of the smaller ones, there are all kinds of things. I could table a list for you. There are municipalities that have bought buses, and there are municipalities that have introduced rights of way. Other municipalities have introduced dedicated transit signalling, which means that when you're at a stop signal and it turns green, the buses get to go first before the cars. There has also been some innovation in terms of intelligent transportation systems.

Even here in Ottawa, if you take the bus, you can see in the last year that there has been a lot of technology added to the system. For instance, the bus stops are announced. There is an LED display at the front. Actually, when you're waiting at the bus stop you can phone a number and find out when your bus is going to arrive.

So there has been a whole host of projects funded under the plan.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Essentially what I'm hearing from you, then, is that municipalities have very clearly been able to come up with projects that were suiting their priorities. In these cases you've mentioned, they were transit-related projects. That's what I asked you to provide me with. Certainly there were many other types of projects, very valuable projects, that were determined to be priorities by other municipalities, but it sounds to me as though municipalities have been able to very clearly identify where transit was their specific need and have been able to come up with some very innovative projects.

Certainly there was no requirement for the federal government to tell them how to invest their money, to them what types of projects they should be supporting. They were able to come up with transit-related projects that were very valuable to their communities, it sounds to me. Would you agree with that?

[Taki Sarantakis]

Absolutely, and the empirical data also confirms that. We have approximately 15 investment categories, and transit is always if not number one then number two. In fact, a lot of municipalities have decided to dedicate the totality of their gas tax funds to transit.

Even though it's an omnibus suite of programs, transit is always incredibly well represented.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

I'm glad you mentioned the gas tax, because that was actually what I wanted to talk about next.

I've always believed that a model like the gas tax model is a great way for our government to make investments in infrastructure. What that does, of course, is allow municipalities, as I've talked about and as you've mentioned, to set priorities among the projects they want to see. They can use the money they're provided under that fund to make long-term decisions about the priorities. Knowing that they have this predictable funding, knowing that it's something they can rely on, they can make priorities around it and plan what they would like to see as priorities for their communities.

Especially in a country like ours, a very diverse country, we have different regions and different types of communities, of course. We have some large urban centres. We have some very small communities that also have needs when it comes to transit, but they're very different.

I look at a riding like mine, for example. I have many small communities, but I have a number of small communities that have commuters who go to Calgary. They've been able to come up with systems they can use to help commuters. But they're certainly different from what they would be in a Toronto or Vancouver city riding. They've been able to set their priorities, just as a larger centre would have somewhat different priorities. Maybe it's a subway line in a larger community.

Would you agree with me that this is the rationale for that type of a fund to be utilized?