Evidence of meeting #3 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 municipalities.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Assistant Deputy Minister, Policy and Communications Branch, Infrastructure Canada
Sure.
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
I have a question...just because I don't know. In Ontario, the gas tax portion from the Ontario government has to go to transit. Is that correct?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Policy and Communications Branch, Infrastructure Canada
By and large, yes.
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
I believe that's accurate. Do you have any sense of whether the gas tax collection in other provinces has the same parameters around it?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Policy and Communications Branch, Infrastructure Canada
To my knowledge the only other province that has a gas tax program is Quebec. I know about Ontario and Quebec.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Policy and Communications Branch, Infrastructure Canada
Alberta has a kind of transfer, but it's not tied to the gas tax.
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
My question is to you, as you're the Infrastructure Canada piece. In my community, the gas tax money was spent, appropriately--I'm not saying inappropriately--on fixing up our main throughway, in downtown Burlington. I'm from Burlington, Ontario.
Do you feel that we are getting enough feedback from the municipalities and credit for the money that we're spending through the gas tax? They're spending the money. Is the federal government, since we are providing a sizeable portion of this money, getting enough information back and enough credit for the money that's being spent by the municipalities?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Policy and Communications Branch, Infrastructure Canada
The gas tax, as you know, has two components that are unique. The first is that the federal share is 100%. The second unique component is that the federal government has no role in project selection. Those two things would tend by their nature, especially the second, to not highlight gas tax funding as well as they should, because the way it's set up right now is that municipalities pick the project and report on it later.
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
Right. So we're only lucky if they let us know what they're spending the money on. Or do they have a reporting system?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Policy and Communications Branch, Infrastructure Canada
No, we audit the municipalities, so we know what the money went to, but we only know after the fact. A lot of times something will be done and built before we knew that it was federal gas tax money.
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
Right. And I don't actually mind that, to be honest with you, but I think as members of Parliament we should be notified that the project, whatever it is, was partially funded by federal tax dollars. I'm not sure that's actually happening.
The word “strategy” can be applied to virtually anything. You can develop a private member's bill or a booklet on strategy, but to me it's the action of getting things on the ground and getting things moving that really makes a difference. You can call it whatever you want; I don't think it really matters. I think it's having it encapsulated in the infrastructure process that is here.
I'll go to my question, then. Based on the fact that we need to find savings as a government to try to get back to a balanced budget, is your department looking at ways of streamlining the way this process works, so that projects can be approved more quickly and money sent with less bureaucratic costs?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Policy and Communications Branch, Infrastructure Canada
As you know, during the economic action plan the government tremendously increased the speed at which projects were approved, not only from an administrative perspective, but also from a regulatory perspective, including changes to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act.
Those changes continue to be in force. The administrative streamlining that took place during EAP has largely continued, and we would expect that orientation would continue in future programming.
NDP
Olivia Chow NDP Trinity—Spadina, ON
There is actually a list. And I think Mr. Watson had asked the question. A majority of the G-8 countries and OECD countries have capital funding that is predictable. They actually have a plan. There is transit-related research and development funding. The level of policy integration in transit funding is related to other areas. There's administrative support. There are planning requirements, partnership fare subsidies.
If we look at all the other countries, they have laid out in each of the areas what the federal government would do with their partners. I don't think we are there yet.
It actually connects with the question that Mr. Wallace was asking: at what level do you want accountability, and how much freedom do you want? You want most of the projects from the ground up, but if a project is a white elephant--
Conservative
NDP
Olivia Chow NDP Trinity—Spadina, ON
Whichever, I'm not going to name any. But there have to be some criteria to determine whether they are or they're not, because it is taxpayers' dollars. Is it completely municipally and provincially driven, or is it nationally driven? There have to be some criteria.
From the questions that Mr. Poilievre has asked, at this point I haven't heard a precise definition of what the cost recovery is. Assuming they're going to lose money on a capital project, surely there have to be some criteria or a guideline to say that perhaps 40% or 50% of the funding should come from the ridership base.
When I was on the budget committee for ten years, I know when TTC came to ask for money on a capital project it had to somehow meet clear criteria. At that time 50% of their capital funding came from operating funds, so if they couldn't afford 50% of the operating funds, then sorry but their capital project wasn't worth it.
There are criteria like that, and I think we should ask precisely what those criteria are. If we don't, how are we to prevent, say, with the Building Canada fund as it relates to capital public transit projects, a transit line being built into pasture land, for example?
I'm asking that question in a general way, and I think our committee needs to explore that. Yes, the gas fund is local--completely local, 100% locally driven--but what percentage should it be? Should it increase? Should it be indexed? The Building Canada fund is going to wind down. What kind of replacement should there be, and what percentage should it be?
With respect to public transit, is 40% the right percentage, or should it be 30% or 60%? Should it be determined by ridership or per capita? What percentage of it should be per capita? What percentage of it is per ridership? We don't know. We don't really have any criteria.
So if you can enlighten us--sorry for the long question, but it's somewhat complex--why is it 40%, for example? Why not 50%? Why not 30%? Does it just so happen that there's a pent-up demand?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Policy and Communications Branch, Infrastructure Canada
It's a good question. It's something that I think would warrant discussion among the committee.
There are different criteria or triggers that the federal government could institute, if that's what it wishes. For instance, you could set a minimum farebox recovery rate for any project.
Has the federal government done that in the past? No, it hasn't. The only thing we require from our partners right now is that they commit that they will cover the operating losses in their totality. To the extent that they're willing to do that, then the federal government doesn't interfere.
But could the federal government, if it wanted, say that it would not invest in any transit system that doesn't recover 60% of its operating costs? Absolutely. That's an option the government of the day could decide. There are pluses and minuses to that. Obviously the pluses would be that you tend to be building the larger subway systems and transit systems, but you would probably more or less automatically exclude anything outside of cities of any size.
NDP
Olivia Chow NDP Trinity—Spadina, ON
But certainly you can.... For a city of smaller size, of course the subsidy is much higher. You can make definite allowance for that, because there's Building Canada, there are the rural Canada funds, for example. There are many different.... It's not just one big fund. There are separate funds to assist smaller municipalities and communities. That one bus in Parry Sound made a huge difference for the people there.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Policy and Communications Branch, Infrastructure Canada
Exactly. That's the point, that in different communities.... Like one bus in Parry Sound is a very big deal; one bus in Ottawa is not that big a deal. That's why we tend to leave these decisions at the local level.
NDP
