Transport Committee on May 30th, 2013

[Scott Clements]

That's a good intermodal example, but even within the mode of building a road to handle traffic if you consider congestion management you may well build a road for about two-thirds the cost if you have done the right things.

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

Do you think that should be the job of the provincial government, the local municipal government, or should it be the federal government that actually considers it?

[Scott Clements]

Yes, all three.

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

It should be all three.

[Scott Clements]

Yes.

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

Because so far the discussion has been that it should be up to the provincial and municipal governments. The federal government really shouldn't have any say over it. But you're saying the federal government needs to take a leadership role so that it could be planned properly, because the funds are coming from the federal government also. It's cost shared I assume.

[Scott Clements]

Yes.

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

Do I have any more time left?

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

You have half a minute if you want to use it.

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

In that case who should initiate the congestion discussion? Would it make sense for the federal government to provide some kind of seed grant through the infrastructure funds to say to a region that if you are considering spending billions of dollars or millions building roads or tracks or whatever, there should be a congestion study done first? Once you have a plan, then we'll move forward with the plan. Because often without that kind of incentive, some areas may not want to work together. They may see each other as competition. As a result they just do their own thing and we end up wasting our money. Right?

Should there be some kind of incentive so that you have to do the congestion study before you can move ahead?

[Scott Clements]

You have to demonstrate—and it would be compulsory—that you have considered it. By doing that, who knows? You may get one-third of the projects where it is applicable, where it actually happens.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you.

Mr. McGuinty, you have seven minutes.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Clements, Mr. Taylor, thank you for being here.

Mr. Clements, I want to thank you for your testimony today. It's very insightful, in terms of the growth challenges you're facing in the region.

Again, I want to pick up where my colleague left off. This time it's directly relevant to the question of value for money, in terms of infrastructure. It may not be the pointed question that I think members of the Conservative caucus would like, which is whether closed bidding systems are less value for money than open bidding systems.

I want to take it, in your words, to 40,000 feet. There is this CRISP process you mentioned. Has the federal government been involved in any of this at all, or has it been observing from the sidelines?

[Scott Clements]

It's very much on the sidelines.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Has it been asked to get engaged or participate in the process?

[Scott Clements]

That would be up to the Province of Alberta. I don't know what interaction they've had with their counterparts in the federal government. I think that until the province decides they're actually going to step in with both feet, they probably wouldn't engage too forthrightly with the federal government, but it's there to be done.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Fair enough.

The Mayor of Wood Buffalo testified in another committee here on the Hill that the pace of growth in the area is now making it very difficult to control costs, very difficult to set in motion the kind of 40-year trajectory you described, which helps with good planning and good quality of life, the right pace of economic growth, the right kind of environmental protection systems we want in place.

Given that pace, you said it's going so quickly that without that multi-modal 40-year plan, we'll be continuing to grow haphazardly. Is that what I heard you say?

[Scott Clements]

There is a certain amount of chaos involved with the pressure and it has produced some pejorative results. Yes, it is true.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Some difficult results, especially for good folks like yourself who are running an airport authority and you say there are 47 airports in the Wood Buffalo catchment area, in the municipality, which I think you said you hope to wean down to the top five.

[Scott Clements]

Let's say there are six or seven that are really busy. A systems approach might have come up with two.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

It might have come up with two airports to work with—

[Scott Clements]

Maybe three.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

—one of which would be the one you're managing, presumably.

[Scott Clements]

Oh, yes. It's the certified airport, the only one in the region.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

The work that's been done at the airport authority that you oversee, what is the bidding system you have in place now?