Transport Committee on Oct. 3rd, 2011

[Isabelle Morin, NDP, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Last week, officials from Infrastructure Canada who appeared before this committee said that a national transportation strategy and a federal fund earmarked for public transit would exclude communities that do not currently have a public transit network.

Could you tell me whether, in your opinion, the public transit development fund would be preferable to a federal fund which municipalities could tap into for their own infrastructure initiatives? Would that, in your opinion, be applicable to all communities?

[Brock Carlton]

Should there be a long-term infrastructure plan and should there be some resources earmarked for such a plan—whether it be a program, indexation of the gas tax or something else—specific resources could be allocated to the municipalities that need them for public transit. However, it is important for us to adopt a more comprehensive perspective that is not restricted to public transit alone. We are talking about municipal infrastructure, a national program and national principles enabling us to do what needs to be achieved locally.

[Isabelle Morin, NDP, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Fine.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

You have two minutes left, Ms. Liu, if you'd like to take the time.

[Laurin Liu, NDP, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Sure. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks for your presentation.

Can you talk about how a national public transit strategy could help municipalities in terms of long-term planning?

[Brock Carlton]

As we have said, the important thing is that if there is an infrastructure plan with certain principles and resources in place, then municipalities can see long term. The beauty of the gas tax is that municipalities have a stable, predictable resource outside of the property tax, so they can finance using it and they can predict and plan for the future using that.

What we are saying is that it doesn't have to be the gas tax, but if some of those principles are in place for an infrastructure program that is long term, then the municipalities have the capacity to see the future financially, understand the future in terms of their needs because of their own analyses of their communities and the expected growth, etc. Because the programming is predictable and long term, they can marry resources with plans. Without a longer-term perspective, without the programs or financing and planning that is based on our principles or others that may be consistent with those principles, municipalities can't predict the long term and they can't say they can borrow based on the future gas tax revenues, because if those aren't predictable and long term, then they can't marry the needs with their long-term financing requirements.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

I have to stop you there.

Mr. Watson.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses. It's good to have you back at our committee once again.

I have a lot of questions and very little time to ask them, so I'll try to be as brief as I can.

[Brock Carlton]

You want the answers to be brief as well.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

I'll try to phrase my questions briefly.

First, very definitively, is the FCM calling for a national public transit strategy, or something along that line?

[Brock Carlton]

The FCM is calling for a long-term infrastructure plan in which transit is an important element and in which there are guiding principles that are national in nature.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

That is interesting.

In consideration of structuring such funding, let me just make sure I understand this. Are you asking for a dedicated amount within an omnibus infrastructure program, or do you want something separate entirely for transit so that large municipalities have access not only to an omnibus program but in addition to a transit funding stream?

[Brock Carlton]

That's a very good question.

No, we're looking for, as you put it, “omnibus”. We are talking about a long-term infrastructure plan with a financing element to it, into which—

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

How long would be the timeframe for such an infrastructure program that would help you on planning your transit needs?

[Brock Carlton]

If you think of all the challenges, if you're looking at something like a 20-year plan, then you have time to—

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

The Building Canada fund was seven years, which is usually pretty long—

[Brock Carlton]

I know. We will get to this kind of question in the dialogue with the feds about the details of a long-term plan, but these are long-term projects and we're not pretending that the fix is there on a short term. We understand the magnitude of the issue we're trying to engage in here.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

On the question of cost-sharing, how much for each level of government? Is there a role for the private sector? What should their contribution be to it?

[Brock Carlton]

There is a role for the private sector. I wouldn't put a percentage on it because it would depend on specific situations. The tradition has been a third, a third, and a third. I would say that when it's a third, a third, a third, the municipalities end up paying more than a third, just because there are all kinds of costs that are implied in the exercise. And there are limits to the capacity of municipalities to finance one-third, one-third, one-third.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Okay.

With respect to the federal government participation in funding, would it be limited to capital expenditure only, or operational expenditure? The last time I checked, we don't flow money for the operation of waste water treatment systems or arena management, but....

[Brock Carlton]

Right.

Traditionally, the federal government has been in the financing game for capital. It creates challenges. If you look at last year, in the city of Toronto, the financing available for the TTC through provincial-federal transfers and through the fare box was not sufficient to maintain the growth. So the city itself ended up with a deficit challenge of about $17 million, I believe, only because of the growth and because transfers from other orders of government were not helping with operating costs.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Should federal funding be incremental, for new construction, or are you advocating that it should also include the capacity to fund maintaining existing systems?

[Brock Carlton]

No. The infrastructure stock in this country is extensive and out of date, so we would be arguing that it needs to be not just for new infrastructure, because there's so much out there that needs to be repaired.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

The structure of FCM--you'll have to forgive me, I haven't looked at the list of all the municipalities involved--that includes rural municipalities, as well?

[Brock Carlton]

Yes, our smallest member has a population of five.