Transport Committee on Oct. 17th, 2011

[Jeff Walker]

It was. We would add that is there is probably value in doing a set-aside for different levels of community. There's probably value in having a set-aside of new funding. For example, cities under 20,000 people would need such and such a set-aside, with others for cities of 20,000 to 100,000, 100,000 to 500,000, and so on. Probably that's necessary because otherwise the big cities would gobble up all the money. Within the boundaries of setting limits and criteria for submissions for funding, there is probably value in doing some set-asides for those reasons, but we believe that the local communities know. If there's a need for a forum of discussion about what's working, then maybe there should be one. I'm not sure the government should be organizing it, but there sure ought to be one.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

We set up our Building Canada fund so that there was a communities component established for smaller communities. That's the kind of thing you would like to see in future?

[Jeff Walker]

Yes.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

The model that we have set up through the gas tax transfers is based on the idea that there is some stable, predictable, long-term funding that municipalities can take a look at and plan for their needs. These needs could be transit or other types of infrastructure such as roads. I think this fits in with what you were saying earlier. That allows them to make plans for their needs, as opposed to looking at various programs created by provincial or federal governments and trying to figure out how to put this square peg into that round hole. A community might find a project that may have been fourth or fifth down their list is what qualifies according to criteria set by other levels of government. Then their top priorities aren't being accomplished. I like the idea of the gas tax funding being a stable, predictable, long-term funding that allows communities to make plans and know that their projects will be funded.

Does that fit in with what you're saying? We want to see different communities able to make plans based on their needs, because we understand that it's a very diverse country.

[Tim Shearman]

I think we'd agree with that. We have to remember that despite the stimulus spending on the economic action plan we still have a huge infrastructure deficit. That includes what we see in Montreal as a good example. We have roads and bridges, but we also have other infrastructure problems with sewers, etc. We have to balance the needs of the individual municipalities in light of the deficits, the upkeep that needs to be done, and the new projects. It's going to be different for each city.

Cties in western Canada don't have the same infrastructure problems, because they're not as old. But they're going to have transit issues because their populations have grown more rapidly. The municipalities have to spend money where they feel it's necessary.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

I appreciate that. That's exactly the sentiment I think we have with that gas tax transfer funding. It is to allow municipalities that opportunity to make those plans based on their infrastructure needs and what they feel is pressing for their communities.

How much time have I got?

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Fifteen seconds.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Okay, so I'll skip over to the one question I wanted to ask.

I had some comments on your opening remarks, though it's slightly off topic, about texting while driving. Has your organization done any study or heard of statistics compiled by others? I know here in Ontario and in my home province of Alberta a law was passed to deal with the problem. I'm just wondering if you've seen any stats, whether from those examples or from other examples in the States or other places in the world, where laws have been passed, on what effect they've had on instances of texting. I'm just curious about whether there's any proof that those laws work.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Very briefly.

[Jeff Walker]

The issue's brand-new and the data collection is brand-new. They're just starting to collect this data. We see a few jurisdictions in the U.S. doing it. We don't see any in Canada yet starting to collect that data.

One of the big challenges with texting while driving.... I think we all observe it. We're all watching, and as we drive around we see people do it. The reality is that a whole lot of fender benders are caused by texting while driving, but the BlackBerry goes back in the pocket or somewhere else before the police show up. So there's a huge problem around the data collection of that issue.

We've collected a whole bunch of behavioural data in our research that says that upwards of 30% of people under 24 have texted while driving in the last 30 days. We're talking about some pretty big numbers. It's a big problem.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Mr. Toet.

[Lawrence Toet, Conservative, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for coming to meet with us today.

In your introduction you talked about being an affiliation of nine member clubs. You touched a little bit on some of the challenges of working towards consensus and how that works within your clubs. Could you elaborate a little on that for us? I think a large part of that touches the conversation we're having here as to what has worked effectively for you in that regard. That will have an impact on what works effectively for a transit strategy that is also going forward.

[Tim Shearman]

Yes, and we really feel that the reason CAA has existed for over 100 years in some jurisdictions is because the local knowledge has allowed the clubs to be at the grassroots with their members.

We have nine member clubs, as you pointed out, pretty much provincially designated. There may be a little bit of an exception in Atlantic Canada. We really rely on those local clubs to know how they best serve their members. As a federation, we have certain standards that clubs have to adhere to so that members, as they travel across the country or throughout North America, receive the same basic level of services. The local flavour and the local knowledge make us successful. We're convinced that our growth over the past few years—we've had 2% growth even throughout tougher economic times—is based on that community involvement. We feel that extends, in this debate at least, to their knowledge of their local communities in transit and in infrastructure spending.

[Jeff Walker]

In terms of how we function in relation to our clubs, the word I use is facilitator. We work as a facilitating agent. Ideas bubble up from them, and we try to help create a forum where information is shared, and people understand what's working and not working in different jurisdictions. We stay pretty far from prescription, and that's the key thing. We try to create, if you will, that forum or platform where people learn from each other and where we can bring in smart people from outside of our organization to tell us about interesting things. We do that, but we stay very close to the line in terms of telling people what to do.

[Lawrence Toet, Conservative, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

So you'd say there's a big difference, then, between a top-down dictatorship that's essentially telling the local community what to do and how to do it and listening to that community and seeing what they see. As an overall organization, you need to have a set criteria for them to work within, but as long as they're working within those criteria, that works very effectively.

[Jeff Walker]

We feel strongly that it's helpful when those players have input to the criteria. It's a good thing. Usually they have more buy-in to the process in the end, but at the end of the day the general criterion is probably the limit by which we would want to be directly involved in telling our clubs what to do.

[Lawrence Toet, Conservative, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

I'm asking these questions as a bit of a lead-up to talking about whether it's best to have a transit strategy that is driven from the bottom up, from the grassroots so to speak, of the local communities. We've had a lot of conversation here about the different requirements or different needs of different communities, not only on the basis of the community populations, but also on the existing infrastructure of the communities, the environment they're living within. Canada has vast differences in environment also. Would you see from the work you've done with your membership that this would garner a lot more support across the country by having things coming from the bottom up, rather than from the top down?

[Jeff Walker]

I think it's a combination, because I think what is important is the ideas probably need to come from the bottom up, but at the end of the day the reality is that the federal government is going to have to come to the table with a significant share of the dollars.

There are two parts to this equation. There probably is some bottom up in terms of ideas, but there is a very real ask and a very real need at the dollar level, which is only going to be able to be provided by the federal government.

[Lawrence Toet, Conservative, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

From what I understand, you see the federal government much more in a financial role and as a facilitator and the CAA in a broad role rather than to be the one drawing up all the plans and saying this is what you must work within. You'd much rather see very broad criteria and an allowance to work within that, with the federal government having a large part of the financial burden.

[Jeff Walker]

I mean with some set-asides, like we talk about for size of community, for intelligent infrastructure kinds of transportation, and frankly within the boundaries of not just transit. Transit is critical, but it's not the only thing.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you.

Mr. Sullivan.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Thank you.

Thank you, gentlemen, for being here.

As you can probably tell from the discussion, we probably have the same goals but a different idea of how we should get there. As you correctly surmised, a lot of it revolves around how the federal government contributes to the building of public transit in the country, and from our perspective we're not always happy with choices not necessarily based on a common framework, common ground rules, in terms of funding. I think that's what we're trying to say.

We're not trying to suggest that the government be prescriptive about thou shalt only have this particular type of bus or thou shalt only have.... But we're concerned that different communities get different responses from federal funding or different parts of communities get different responses from federal funding, depending on political decisions, perhaps, or political interference with the decision-making process. That's part of the reason we're proposing that there be a national strategy, that it becomes “agnostic”, is your word--I like it--that it becomes apolitical, that the decision-making in terms of investments in public transit have none of the colour we've seen over the years, particularly in Toronto, where we dig a hole, fill it in, dig it again for the Eglinton subway. Here we go with a lot of money being spent on infrastructure that finally gets built, but 20 years late.

I've heard you agree that there currently isn't enough money in the system. I won't ask you to describe how much money there should be, but ought there to be more and ought it to be as part of a strategy rather than just ad hoc?

[Tim Shearman]

There can always be more money. The question is where is it going to come from? In Canada we have to balance what comes in with what's important to Canadians. We poll Canadians all the time, and we know health care is always important, education is important, and transportation is important.

We think the money perhaps can be spent more intelligently through looking at some of the research that's being done out there in terms of making better use of the existing infrastructure and ensuring, as you point out, there's transparency. I think if Canadians see transparency in the process, they're going to be more likely to buy into it.

I think that's certainly what we would advocate. Transparency can come in the form of the various levels of government getting together with other stakeholders to discuss the best ways to spend those precious dollars.

[Jeff Walker]

I'm going to echo what Tim said on this notion of transparency. We think in a lot of cases decisions are getting made. I think the stimulus spending money was spent in very specific ways because there was a very specific set of needs that needed to happen relatively immediately. You could call those political or you could say there was an economic need at a moment in time. To our mind, we'd love to see a few different criteria introduced to hopefully the next version of Building Canada, but at the end of the day I really agree with Tim on this one, that this notion of transparency around the rationale for decision-making can probably go a heck of a long way to assuaging some of those concerns or considerations. That's something that could be usefully done without being too prescriptive.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

I have to end it there.

I thank our guests for being here for the first part of our meeting. As always, it was good information and I'm sure the committee will have future questions of you too. I thank you.

We'll recess for two minutes while we bring our next guests forward. I would like to start on time, so we should limit it to a two-minute recess.