Evidence of meeting #75 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 projects.
A video is available from Parliament.
3:45 p.m.
Conservative
3:45 p.m.
NDP
Mike Sullivan NDP York South—Weston, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would like to introduce a motion, which reads as follows:
That the committee conduct a study on the factors contributing to the decline in passenger rail service and the future prospects of passenger rail service in Canada.
3:45 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
The interpreters just informed me that they don't have a copy of that, but anyway, a notice of motion has been given.
With that, we'll have our witness, Mr. Scott Clements, from—
3:45 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
Yes, okay. I was going to do it at the end, but I'm willing to entertain it right now.
3:45 p.m.
Some hon. members
Oh, oh!
3:45 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
This is a housekeeping item. We need to pass this budget to pay for witnesses to come here.
Are you so moving, Ms. Chow?
3:45 p.m.
NDP
Olivia Chow NDP Trinity—Spadina, ON
Yes, I am, for the grand total of $13,800, which is the amount—
While I have the floor, it would be great, if we could, to make sure that the picking of the witnesses, as between the government side and the opposition side, will be, as I hope it will be, balanced.
3:45 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
Ms. Chow, there will be balance. You and I discussed this on Tuesday. There are many opposition witnesses invited, starting on Tuesday.
3:45 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
I will tell you that a number of the opposition witnesses have been asked up until now who were not available, and we had to move forward, just so that you're aware of that.
We will give them another chance to come and we are doing so.
3:45 p.m.
NDP
Olivia Chow NDP Trinity—Spadina, ON
All right.
Now that the parliamentary secretary has arrived, we are ready for the vote.
3:45 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
This is just a housekeeping motion, Mr. Poilievre, on the budget for witnesses.
Is there any discussion on the motion?
(Motion agreed to)
We shall move to our witnesses. We have Mr. Scott Clements here from the Fort McMurray port authority.
I hope I have your title right.
3:45 p.m.
Scott Clements President and Chief Executive Officer, Fort McMurray Airport Authority
It's “airport”, but that's close enough.
3:45 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
What did I say? Oh, port—and I knew that, as well.
My apologies. Thank you very much, Mr. Clements, and congratulations on something you're going to receive later today. We don't usually have our witnesses dressed up quite as finely as you are dressed. Welcome.
Also, Mr. Taylor has committed to being here and I'm sure he will be here shortly.
Mr. Clements, please take 10 minutes.
3:45 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Fort McMurray Airport Authority
Thank you, Chair.
I'm going to attend Canada's Aviation Hall of Fame dinner tonight. A couple of my former acquaintances and colleagues are being honoured. I'm going directly there from this occasion. That's why I'm all dressed up.
I'm from Fort McMurray, Alberta, the oil sands area. Of course, most of you have at least read quite a bit about what's going on there. Some of you have visited. The chair and I shared a jet boat on a nice summer day and saw Fort McMurray at its best, from the rivers. It's an absolutely fabulous place to visit in the summer, not so much in the winter. I'm pleased that Brian Jean is bringing so many of his colleagues to see the magnificent sites and the scope of what's going on in that region.
In fact, I was at one event, and it was termed “the largest industrial project in world history” by whoever was speaking. I wish I could remember. Anyway, whoever it was, I've been quoting him ever since and I haven't had anybody argue with me too much.
If you go onto the CAPP, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, website you'll see some statistics that probably would prove the point. In 25 years, Canada's economy will benefit to the tune of $2.1 trillion because we have the oil sands. It'll go from the 85,000 jobs that we have today in Canada, to just under a million jobs in 25 years. This, of course, assumes that we go from just under the two million barrels per day that are coming out of the oil sands, progressively through to six million barrels a day. Even at that rate, there are over 125 to 150 years of production that will continue this great wealth generation in the country.
Anyway, that's all happening but it's not happening easily. Your subject matter today is vitally important to the success of that particular region, as it obviously is to the success of Canada in general.
I've spent a lifetime, 53 years, in the transportation business, heavily oriented toward aviation. In that time, particularly over the last 20 years or so, I've talked often about the subject matter in front of us today. How do you approach things in a better way to get maximum bang for your buck when you're dealing with billions of dollars of spending? That's fundamentally what we're after. The problem is that we're challenged by jurisdictions, by modes, by the fact that we're all people with all of the failings that come with people and groups of people.
It would be simple if you could take the whole oil sands area and say that we understand what the problem is, so let's sit down with all of the stakeholders around the table, create a 40-year plan that would take advantage of technology, of assumptions that we can work together, and devise a multi-modal way, triggered by the amount of oil that's coming out in the growth curve, and come up with a plan to spend money efficiently and at the right time and in the right modes to facilitate the growth of that product with minimum cost and minimum investment.
Well, you know, the good news is that's actually happened. The Government of Alberta has spent three years coming up with a 40-year plan for the region. It's called the comprehensive regional infrastructure sustainability plan. It's doing the same thing for the other regions where the oil sands exist. They've approved it at the cabinet level. The bad news is that it's totally unfunded and there was no attempt in the study to say the industry will do this and the government will do that, and so on. So there it sits.
There is a high expectation, of course, because it is an approved plan, that it will be implemented. The pressure is on industry and the government at three levels to sit down and say, “Okay, this is a good idea. Let's get on with it”.
They have created a committee. It's called the Athabasca Oil Sands Area Transportation Coordinating Committee. I sit on the committee representing aviation. It is a senior enough committee. It includes three deputy ministers sitting around the table as well as all of the important people in industry and in the municipality. We've met three times, and we're having trouble getting going because of all of the failings that I talked about earlier, not to mention the provincial budget that just came down and pretty much poured cold water on the whole plan for the next three years.
We have not given up. In particular, industry hasn't given up. It's pushing the hardest to take this plan and move it somewhere. In a second charge at the issue, which is industry-led, we are looking at ways of funding to at least identify the first seven or eight years of the $11 billion that has been identified against the plan and to get some consensus around what the projects will be and who will play, and then we'll try to get down into how much and when.
I've always been an optimist. I think we've done the right things to get to where we are with this particular plan called CRISP, and with some leadership. Leadership is absolutely key in having this kind of macro push to do things the right way. I'm sure we're going to get it done.
The alternative is that it will happen haphazardly as it has in the past. There are 47 airports in the region of Wood Buffalo, of which at least a dozen are pretty busy. The top five actually have almost 2.5 million passengers—mainly workers—moving in and out of the region every year. That's an enormous number.
In building those airports—they were built by oil companies—they went to the province, and the jurisdiction that approves airports approved them. The problem was that it wasn't done on a systems basis. Transport Canada, the people who have to manage the airspace and oversee the safety of the region, were not sufficiently consulted. What we've ended up with is basically uncontrolled airspace in which you can't really see the aircraft, and for a while you couldn't talk to them. It's a very difficult situation for Nav Canada to manage.
As part of this transportation coordination committee—and I was the aviation lead—we asked for a study to be done over eight months with the right people who knew what they were doing, and they came up with a set of recommendations—with all of the oil company interests represented and the province and the federal government watching—that was bought into. The whole focus is to establish a group that will meet often with the right level of people to actually talk about the airspace and the plans, and to share information and cooperate and coordinate.
That particular committee has had three meetings already in only four months. There is great confidence.
3:55 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
This is on how to make infrastructure dollars go further, so if you could—
3:55 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Fort McMurray Airport Authority
This is precisely where it's leading.
3:55 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Fort McMurray Airport Authority
It's at a very high level, which is where you wanted me to be. I'm way up there at about 40,000 feet.
3:55 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Fort McMurray Airport Authority
To make the situation safer, hundreds of millions of dollars have to be spent. They could have been spent, as I say, individually by companies going to build their own airports, and we ended up with so many.
We're going to end up with many fewer airports. We're going to end up spending on what we call the poor man's radar—a bunch of towers that can triangulate and see aircraft and that are able to make the situation much safer. By being able to see the aircraft, we're going to be able to increase the number of aircraft processing through there. Finally, we're going to be able to do all this—this is an example of what I'm talking about—with a lot less money than if we had not gotten together and agreed on a systems approach.
The same thing is going to happen with the $11 billion that needs to be spent on the ground infrastructure to have more people living in Fort McMurray and commuting to work every day, instead of the millions who are flying in and out from all over the place.
I'm a member of the Alberta Economic Development Authority. I've been a member for nine years. My term will end next year. This agency has existed for 20 years. It advises the premier every six months.
We have been looking at exactly the kind of thing you've been looking at for some time. The most recent briefing—and it went to the premier, and she liked it—was all about congestion management. Congestion management is another construct that more or less does the same thing as I described with the other example. Using technology in an extensive way, it brings together.... The City of Toronto, for instance, with the massive transportation and congestion issues that it has, probably is already using congestion management, but may not be using it enough.
This study would be very worthwhile for your staff to look at.
3:55 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
With that, I'm going to have to cut you off. Maybe you can add more in questions.
Mr. Stephen Taylor from the National Citizens Coalition, you may have 10 minutes, please.
