Great. Thank you.
Of course we're always interested in anything related to infrastructure, so we really appreciate being invited here today.
I should say that our president, Berry Vrbanovic, a councillor from Kitchener, was not able to be here today. He has a council meeting about some important issues, and local democracy is really important to him and to our folks.
FCM has been the voice of municipal government since 1901. Our members represent 90% of the Canadian population. We have approximately 2,000 members across the country.
Public transit is key to a strong economy, and must be part of a new federal long-term infrastructure plan. To compete globally and protect our quality of life, Canada will need cities and communities with fast, efficient transportation networks that connect companies to customers, workers to jobs, and communities to markets.
In a country that needs to increase its economic productivity, traffic gridlock is choking the economy, slowing the movements of goods, services, and people to a standstill.
A recent Statistics Canada report indicates that Canadians spend approximately 32 days per year on the road, commuting to and from work. That amounts to an average of over 75 minutes per day in Canada's biggest cities. In Toronto, going to and from work takes an average of 81 minutes.
Every hour Canadians spend on the road is an hour not spent at home, at work or at school.
The Canadian Chamber of Commerce estimates that road congestion costs the greater Toronto area's economy $5 billion a year in lost productivity. Nationally, that number is much higher.
During these difficult economic times, lost productivity undermines investments made by all governments to help Canada emerge from the recession and improve our economic competitiveness. Gridlock is on the rise in our cities because of Canada's municipal infrastructure deficit. Repairs and construction on our communities' most fundamental asset are being pushed back.
For 25 years Canadians watched the symptoms of infrastructure deficit grow: rusting bridges, crumbling roads, crowded buses and subways, and health warnings to boil local drinking water. However, after decades of underinvestment, Canada has started to confront its municipal infrastructure deficit. Recent investments by federal, provincial-territorial, and municipal governments have helped Canada fight the global recession and rebuild thousands of aging roads, bridges, water systems, and other essential infrastructure.
Ottawa's growing collaboration with municipalities has produced policies and programs that deliver better value for Canadians. The Building Canada plan and the permanent gas tax fund are examples of long-term funding tools the country needs to properly maintain infrastructure over 30-year, 50-year, even 70-year lifespans.
We must protect and build on recent investments to build a country that can support families and businesses. The long-term infrastructure plan promised in the last federal budget is critical to repairing our aging infrastructure. It must include transit investment and solutions to fight gridlock, cut commute times, and connect communities to growing markets and new opportunities.
The permanent federal gas tax invests in public transit, but the high cost of building modern transportation systems requires dedicated funding. Canada's only national source of dedicated transit funding, the Public Transit Capital Trust, expired in 2010. Canadian cities do not have the tools to build and repair modern transit systems on their own while also building roads and bridges, providing policing and fire protection, and carrying out new responsibilities, including many downloaded by other governments.
Without a share of the income and the sales taxes generated by new growth, communities have been forced to raise property taxes, cut core services, and, most often, put off infrastructure repairs. The resulting infrastructure deficit is bad for families, business, and our economy.
A quick tour around the world--New York, London, Singapore--shows that cities with great transit systems aren't forced to rely on property taxes to build them.
All governments must work together, as well as with the private sector, to identify the challenges facing Canada's infrastructure. They must make investments immediately to build the quality roads, water systems, community facilities and public transit that Canada needs to support families, businesses and our future economic growth.
Moving people efficiently requires commonsense cooperation among all governments. In the end, ensuring that Canadians have the capacity and opportunity to move efficiently in our cities and communities will help us address all of our objectives in the service of Canadians.
We'd like to thank you again for taking the time to invite us and for listening to the comments I've just made. We're prepared, Mr. Chair, to answer any questions. I might add, just before doing that, that with me is Adam Thompson, who is a policy analyst in our shop and focused on these issues, so he's also here to help with any questions you may have.
