Thank you for taking the time to be with us today.
I have a report issued in October 2009 by the urban transportation task force. The task force report is called Urban Transit in Canada: Taking Stock of Recent Progress. This report brings together all different provincial governments, and Transport Canada is of course a partner.
I'm sure you're familiar with this report. It recommends a series of principles. It talks about provincial transit funding, federal transit funding, and municipal transit funding. It talks about looking ahead, about what kinds of expansion plans there would be, and historically what kinds of investment have taken place. Of course there has been an increase, as you said earlier.
It also takes a look at governance and key challenges. We know that no doubt there is a funding gap, and that some of the transit infrastructure, especially in big cities, is in decay. For smaller towns and communities, when they receive a bus, it really means that seniors and young people can then move around in their neighbourhoods.
The key recommendation is that “All levels of government need to work together to provide adequate funding to support transit, while respecting jurisdictional responsibilities.” The report also talks about the importance of the movement of goods and people, and says that all governments should promote transit use.
One of the key areas the report talks about is the federal government taking a leadership role to bring all the provincial, territorial, and also municipal and transit authorities together to come up with a plan. I realize that Lawrence Cannon, the former minister, went to some extent, with your department, to begin to put together that plan. I believe former Minister Chuck Strahl also was looking at that. Perhaps you can describe to us where that initiative is in a putting together a national transit strategy.