Transport Committee on Nov. 29th, 2012

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

We were already between $3 billion and $5 billion, so—

[Denis Lebel, Conservative, Roberval—Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Yes, we are going to consider taxpayers' ability to pay as well as the use that is made of the bridge. We will definitely take all that into account. To give you a simpler answer, Mr. Nantel, I will tell you that we are going to take that into account but that we will also consider taxpayers' ability to pay.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you.

You have the last five minutes, Mr. Poilievre.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

The minister has answered my question. Let's go to Mr. Watson.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Okay.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

Mr. Watson, you have five minutes.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Ministers and officials, for being here today.

Minister, I appreciated your opening comments raising the single most important infrastructure priority facing our country right now, and that's a new bridge between Windsor and Detroit. Recently progress is being made on the American side, as we know, with the defeated Proposal 6 in Michigan, and with Governor Snyder very recently talking about fast-tracking of the project on the U.S. side, I think that's optimistic news; I would characterize it that way.

First of all, the presidential permit, which will be very important, looking to have that issued by the State Department—have you encouraged the Department of State, in terms of expediting, joining with Governor Snyder?

Second, would you care to comment briefly on Governor Snyder's comments regarding fast-tracking?

[Denis Lebel, Conservative, Roberval—Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Okay.

As you've said, this project has been in the plans for years. I spoke about the team. I'm the minister answering questions here today, but I've had the chance to work with the advisory caucus, with the team of Transport Canada. We have a woman here with us today, Helena Borges, who has worked on this issue for 11 years. That's an example of how we continue to work hard on an issue and to fix it.

We are very happy about the announcement we made with the Prime Minister and the way we're managing things. For sure, we add to it. We expected the presidential permit before the American elections. We have been unable, because of delays, to...but we are already on the process. We contacted them, we asked...[Inaudible--Editor]...transportation U.S.A. will change, I think, direction. Well, that's not our business, but we will follow what is going on in the U.S.A.

We continue to push...or to work with them. We don't have to push them; I'm wrong. They are very good partners. The American ambassador here, Mr. Jacobson, and Governor Snyder, have said that....

For the P3s, as an example, Governor Snyder has already said that Canada is an example of this project of partnership. We will continue. We have some other sensitive issues. We already have said that North American steel will be in this bridge. We already have said that. We'll continue to work on this issue, too. The presidential permit, for us, we'd like as soon as we can, but for sure we don't have control over that.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

We appreciate our American partners, who are making progress on the fast-tracking. On our side, we're taking an important fast-tracking step as well. As you're aware, Minister, this committee took the invitation of the finance committee to study elements of Bill C-45 related to the DRIC crossing.

Ms. Borges, who testified at this committee, was very clear on two key elements of that: one, the reminder that an exhaustive environmental assessment process has already been completed and that clauses 7 through 12 will ensure that the new P3 proponent will be compliant with that environmental assessment and other key measures; and secondly, that by removing the approval permit authorization points, we are removing the points for judicial review in Federal Court. She was confident, she expressed, that the DRIC process will be able to proceed, with the passage of Bill C-45, without further lawsuit.

Do you share the same confidence on those points?

[Denis Lebel, Conservative, Roberval—Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Absolutely. That's why we have done all that work up front on the project, and we want to continue to protect, as I already spoke about, the economy. Yes, I agree with what Ms. Borges said about that, and we're very confident that we can go very quickly on this issue.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Minister Fletcher and Minister Lebel, thank you very much for being here.

I know you have busy schedules. I will give you the chance for closing comments, if you wish, but it's at your discretion.

[Denis Lebel, Conservative, Roberval—Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

I have just a quick comment. All members of this committee all work to have better transportation and infrastructure in our country, and I want to thank the members for their support. Together will reach our goals.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you.

We'll take a couple of minutes here while the ministers exit, and we’ll continue.

Thanks.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

I call the meeting back to order.

With that, Ms. Chow, you have seven minutes.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

To the officials, thank you for coming.

I'm just trying to get to the bottom of the green infrastructure fund. I asked the minister about the $349 million being cut. The original plan was the green infrastructure fund was to do $200 million per year. Now there's only $18 million left out of the entire package, it seems to me. Rather than spreading it out over five years, now it's spreading out over six years, because the program went from a five-year to a ten-year program with the same dollar amount, which amounts to about $3 million per year on green infrastructure.

Am I correct in that calculation? That's the first question.

Also, on the same infrastructure fund, $45 million has been reprofiled or transferred to other departments to do other types of things. Could you tell us what they might be? And $58.7 million was sent to the department to do a certain kind of work. Could you describe what that might be?

[Louis Lévesque]

I'll make just a general comment first before passing it on to department officials for more detail.

I just want to go back to the point I was making before. Generally speaking, and you see this in the supplementary estimates (B) also for infrastructure, what is happening is that we are asking for reprofiles, and then we have lapsing funds and the need for supplementary estimates because, in nature, the payments under those funds are transfer payments. So we follow fundamentally the pace of the partners in that respect.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

We understand that.

[Louis Lévesque]

Those are the basics, but I'll turn to Marie and David Miller to address specific questions.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

I understand the spending, and it depends on the speed of the project, but that wasn't really my question: it's that at the end of the day, how much is there, right?

[Marie Lemay, Associate Deputy Minister, Infrastructure Canada]

I will ask David Miller to see if he can give you the details. Before I do that, though, the good news is that we do have $156 million planned to spend this year, so I think that's the number that is important. For the details about where, maybe I can transfer to David.

[David Miller, A/Assistant Deputy Minister, Chief Financial Officer, Corporate Services Branch, Infrastructure Canada]

I'd like to refer members of the committee to our 2012-13 report on plans and priorities. We identify on page 32 exactly what funds have been moved out of the green fund and for what purposes. That identifies the entire amount that's been moved out. The rest of it, as the associate and the deputy were saying, is simply moving cash around in order to meet what we expect the bills to be for the current fiscal year.

I think members must appreciate that the estimates for the cash requirements are actually done about 18 months before we actually know what projects are going to come and occur during that year, so the estimates for 2012-13 were finalized in the summer of 2011. There is an 18-month delay, and obviously for a lot of reasons already explained, we have to make adjustments during the year to match the cash requirements of individual projects. Page 33 of our report on plans and priorities identifies all of the moneys that have been transferred out, and the reasons why.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

The $150 million you talked about, is that per year or is it over six years? That's the green infrastructure fund.

[David Miller]

The $150 million of the green infrastructure fund is identified in the supplementary estimates (B). What we have done is move some of the statutory funding that was provided originally back in 2009-10 and we've moved that to requirements for 2012-13, and there's an additional amount that's voted under vote 45 for this year that nets out to a total of $150 million.