Evidence of meeting #33 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 bus.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Manager, Transit Fleet, Calgary Transit
In essence, we're doing that now. We are trying to move ahead with a CNG facility. We are trying to move ahead with transitioning to 400 CNG buses. We are making a commitment to do that within the City of Calgary, and that is being done at the moment without any federal assistance.
We are doing that.
Conservative
Conservative
Ed Holder Conservative London West, ON
Thank you very much, Chair.
I just want to stay on that same line. I was doing a calculation. It looks to be.... Mr. Davies, is that about $40,000 per bus?
Conservative
Ed Holder Conservative London West, ON
I'm looking at $160 million for 400 new buses. I just did a quick calculation.
Conservative
Ed Holder Conservative London West, ON
Oh, it's $400,000. I missed a zero. That's not a small number.
I guess I'm asking the question. It's interesting. When you talk about the interest-free loan, if you got that, if the federal government were in a position—which it isn't, in my view—to do that, we pay interest on all the monies we borrow, and I think that's the whole focus toward moving to eliminating the deficit and then ultimately tackling the debt. Why would there be an expectation—I say this respectfully—that we would pay the interest but you wouldn't?
Can you help me understand that a little bit?
Manager, Transit Fleet, Calgary Transit
Part of it would be our commitment to the environment. The city is taking the risk at this point in terms of adopting a new technology. It's not that the funding is coming exclusively from the federal government; the money is still coming from the city, essentially, and there is a level of risk that we're adopting here. There are environmental benefits that come from it. They benefit everybody, as well as the whole supply chain of the industry that would benefit as well.
Conservative
Ed Holder Conservative London West, ON
I respect that. When you look at CNG, from everything I've read it's cleaner, it's quieter, there's less maintenance, and presumably the vehicle would be more reliable. I look at all those as positives. I look at your payback and think that if I could make that, as somebody who was in business for over 30 years before taking on this role in politics, it would be pretty—I don't want to say “easy”—saleable to financial institutions. You could tell them that they can bank on this.
The advantage you have coming from—did my colleague say the wealthiest?—maybe not the prettiest but the wealthiest province in the country—
Conservative
Ed Holder Conservative London West, ON
—is that you certainly have the provincial government, and as has been stated, the cities are creatures of the province. I'm not sure what's left of the heritage fund at this point, but I would say to you that there are some opportunities to make your case there, and if that's what you need to do, I certainly wish you well.
I want to go back, if I can, but thank you for that.
Mr. Pascoe, you made some comments about the number of filling stations we have. I just did a quick calculation. You can't trust my zeroes anymore, obviously, but when I did a quick calculation.... You made reference to there being 1.8 million vehicles to 1800 filling stations in Argentina. I think that's 1000 vehicles—it's probably 10,000 now, based on my zeroes—for every filling station. You have Pakistan, with 2.3 million vehicles for 3,000 filling stations; that's 7,660 for every filling station. In Canada there are 80 filling stations to 12,000 vehicles.
That's 150 to one; actually, our ratio is excellent. One might make the argument that there may not be enough of them, but I would say that of all the countries you've referenced, ours has the best ratio of filling stations to vehicles.
But I have a more critical question for you. You seriously referenced the need for more stations, but you also talked about home refilling stations. We've had earlier testimony talking about the safety of filling stations. Do you have any concerns, in your experience as an engineer, based on what you have studied, to suggest that home filling stations would be safe? I'm not worried about reliability. Safety, I think, is the biggest concern any of us on this committee would have.
Vice-President of Corporate Engineering, The Americas, Global Headquarters, Magna International Inc.
First on the question about the ratio of filling stations, I think part of the challenge in Canada is that we have such a vast land. In Toronto, for example, I think they have one filling station. That puts it into perspective. If you own a vehicle and are on one side of Toronto but have to drive halfway across to fill up, and then go home, it makes no sense, does it?
So right now, we're still in a position that doesn't make sense, at least with regard to the spread of filling stations across our nation.
Conservative
Ed Holder Conservative London West, ON
Could that, then, be solved by this notion of home filling stations? Do you see that as part of the resolution?
Vice-President of Corporate Engineering, The Americas, Global Headquarters, Magna International Inc.
I do. I think it is definitely part of the resolution. It's a way to deploy filling stations, because even if we start to put them at corner gas stations or whatever, they won't satisfy everybody's need, and there will be people who want a natural gas vehicle who will say that the station is still too far away for them.
Conservative
Vice-President of Corporate Engineering, The Americas, Global Headquarters, Magna International Inc.
To my knowledge, there are a number of deployed home filling stations today, and I believe they are safe. I think that if there are issues, there are ways to deal with them. For example, if there are issues—and I haven't done a deep dive on the safety with respect to these, other than to know that they're deployed already—you could put the station on the outside of the house and have the car in the driveway, rather than put it in the garage, if there's some issue about gas collecting, or something like that.
I think that in an outside situation it's quite safe.
Conservative
Ed Holder Conservative London West, ON
I would want to have more information on that. Obviously I think this committee would, before making any kind of recommendation that way. If this makes practical sense, and frankly, is safe—that being the key piece here—then it would be something we might like to look at.
Vice-President of Corporate Engineering, The Americas, Global Headquarters, Magna International Inc.
I'd like to get that information for you. Should I send it in to you?
Conservative
Ed Holder Conservative London West, ON
Sending it through the committee chair, I believe, would be appropriate—to the clerk, directed to the chair.
Thank you.
You also made some reference to electric bikes and you talked about the three-wheelers. You spoke in terms of needing clarity around legislation.
Could you help me understand a bit more what you were thinking of in terms of that, sir?
Vice-President of Corporate Engineering, The Americas, Global Headquarters, Magna International Inc.
There are a few public examples out there. GM has had some cars coming out that look like futuristic bubbles and that sort of thing. I don't think these vehicles will look quite like that or like Jetson-style vehicles, but there is a class of vehicle that is being talked about a lot and that is probably going to come out in the next couple of years, which has a pedelec-type of drive that is 300 watt-hours. It costs a few hundred dollars for the battery.
If you guys have never driven a pedelec or electric-assisted bike, you should try it, just to understand this vehicle. There are 20 million a year of this type of vehicle sold in China, a lot sold in Europe, and not so many in North America. But here is a class of vehicle that is coming, which is going to want to find its way to the market. The legislation around this class is really not well defined. You could argue that it's an electric bike, but I'm not so sure that the police or the legislators or whoever will view it that way, and it should be clarified. There needs to be clarification.
Conservative
Ed Holder Conservative London West, ON
It's fairly clear right now. You may disagree, but I think they're treated exactly as bicycles today. It's not that bicycles have any privileges on sidewalks. They're expected to be on the right side of the road, but they can drive in the bike lanes and all of that. You may not like the legislation, and many of us may have differing opinions on it, but it's not that it's soft on it. It's simply treated as a bicycle.
I don't know whether you have any comment on that.
Vice-President of Corporate Engineering, The Americas, Global Headquarters, Magna International Inc.
I want to make sure, because when you put a bubble around something and have heating inside and maybe windshield wipers.... If it's going to be treated as a bicycle, that's great.
The other area that I would like to have—
Conservative
Ed Holder Conservative London West, ON
I'm just saying that when we get there with these, when they become the mode, if you will.... The ones we're all familiar with right now are the two-wheelers that you see. You start by pedalling and then let it go, the pedals flip up, and it becomes effectively like a motorcycle, but it's still treated as a bicycle legislatively.
Vice-President of Corporate Engineering, The Americas, Global Headquarters, Magna International Inc.
Yes, that's true for those.
The thought is: how long does it take to put legislation through for something that is this different, and when should we start? If Magna or GM or some other company does developments on these types of vehicles and the vehicles are ready to go, how long does it take to get legislation through?
That's why I'm raising this as a point. We need to make sure that we're aligned from a timing perspective, and that we don't do development and then have to not launch production because we're waiting for legislation.
Conservative
