Transport Committee on Oct. 24th, 2011

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to meeting number eight of the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, with the orders of the day, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), a study of the national public transit strategy.

Joining us in the first half of our meeting, from the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities, is Mr. Dave Marit, the president. From the Alberta Association of Municipal Districts and Counties, we have Carolyn Kolebaba, vice-president.

Welcome. You know the drill, I know, so I'll ask you to open up and then we'll move to committee questions.

[David Marit, President, Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to take this opportunity to thank the committee for inviting SARM to appear here today to give a rural perspective on transit and some of our issues.

SARM is an independent association that represents all 296 of Saskatchewan's rural municipalities. Membership is voluntary, and our strength comes from our members whose collective voice guides us in policy.

The issues that are of greatest importance to SARM members are issues that impact the quality of life and the productivity of rural communities. SARM wants to again thank the committee for allowing us this opportunity to present and to bring attention to rural transit issues.

In reviewing testimony from the last hearings, we were pleased to see that a number of committee members raised the need for some rural focus and clearly understand that all Canadians deserve access to basic transportation. We are aware that in a time of economic challenges, it is difficult for governments to commit large amounts of funding to new national programs.

We are here today to say that SARM recognizes the challenges of our urban counterparts with regard to public transit. We are also here today to tell you about the unique transit challenges that we face as rural municipalities and communities in Saskatchewan.

When you think of rural communities, you don't normally think of public transit, but there is an important part of the rural population that relies on public transit systems to access essential services and employment opportunities. In addition, rural Canada houses the industries that fuel growth in the rest of Canada. The natural resources, energy, agriculture products, and raw materials extracted from rural areas now make up 50% of Canada's exports. This generates positive economic benefits to all levels of government through the revenues they generate, the people they employ, and the taxes they pay.

SARM is here today to advocate on behalf of our membership and to ask that rural areas not be forgotten when federal transit strategies are created and funding is allocated, either through the national public transit strategy or as part of the next national infrastructure program.

It is a well-known fact that the majority of health, education, social services, and other provincially and federally funded essential services that used to be more readily available in rural areas have been centralized in strategic urban centres across Canada. A good example to draw on is the ability of rural citizens to access quality health care.

In 2001, the Society of Rural Physicians of Canada indicated that 14.9% of Canada's physicians practised in rural areas in 1991. By 1996, this number had dropped to 9.8%. The same report projects the ratio of physicians per 1,000 population in rural areas to decrease from 0.79, in 1999, to 0.53 by 2021.

This report also states that rural hospital closures and centralization of many health services in larger cities means that rural residents have more difficulty accessing services.

In order for Saskatchewan residents living and working in rural Saskatchewan to access such essential services, they need to have options via publicly funded and reliable transit services. Special consideration needs to be given to the portion of rural population that cannot travel by private vehicle to access such services. The elderly, the youth, the disabled, and low-income families with limited or no access to a private vehicle cannot drive to schools and hospitals, etc.

According to Statistics Canada's 2008 “Rural and Small Town Canada Analysis Bulletin”, Canada's rural population is older than the urban population. Within predominantly rural regions, 15% of the population is senior, compared to 13% in predominantly urban regions.

Industry housed in rural areas needs to have access to a reliable base of employees and often in rural areas this base is spread out and is not concentrated in a centre. They also need to be able to access cost-effective transit options to ship or to have shipped to them products such as office supplies, computers, IT hardware, and components used in the fabrication of products, as well as being able to ship finalized products to their customers. Home-based rural businesses rely especially on such services.

The transit of employees to and from work and the transit of goods being shipped via public transit to and from rural industries are important both to the overall productivity of rural-based industries and to the livelihood of rural citizens. This is something that all rural Canadians should have access to, and government funding from all levels should be allocated to such transit companies, to be maintained in the future.

If the government decides to proceed with a national public transit strategy, cost-shared federal government funding earmarked for rural transit needs must be allocated. This transit provides those in rural communities who do not have the ability or cannot afford to drive with a reliable and sustainable transit option to access essential services, and therefore, it is a public good.

It should not be solely the responsibility of municipal governments to fund such systems. It must be earmarked so that rural municipalities are not competing with urban municipalities for the same lump sum. It is hard to fairly rank and compare small-scale rural projects that might service smaller populations over a vast area to urban projects that service large populations in a more concentrated area.

Municipalities should contribute funding, but federal and provincial government funding should be made available also. This funding should be provided outside of what is provided by the federal gas tax fund, as that funding is already fully allocated to service roads, water systems, and other tangible infrastructure in rural municipalities. It should not only fund new initiatives, but should also support existing transit solutions, such as, in Saskatchewan, the Saskatchewan transportation corporation, which is currently offered in the province of Saskatchewan, to ensure the long-term sustainability of companies and our citizens.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you.

Carolyn.

[Carolyn Kolebaba, Vice-President, Alberta Association of Municipal Districts and Counties]

Thank you.

Good afternoon, members of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Transportation, Infrastructure and Communities.

Thank you for having me here today. My name is Carolyn Kolebaba, and I am the vice-president of the Alberta Association of Municipal Districts and Counties, the AAMDC.

Our association represents 69 rural municipalities and about 95% of the land mass in Alberta. Since 1909, we have helped rural municipalities achieve strong, effective local government.

The AAMDC is proud of our long-term relationship with our federal counterpart, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, the FCM. Our president sits on the board of directors, and our executive director is active in FCM's administration functions. As vice-president, I sit on the FCM transportation, environment, and northern and remote communities committees.

I would like to thank you for giving the AAMDC the opportunity to speak in front of you today on this important topic.

Rural transit is an important consideration when discussing a national public transit strategy, due to the realities of rural poverty and the economic engine that lies within our rural areas.

To begin, it is important to realize that poverty in a rural area is a different reality than poverty in a metropolitan area. For instance, if a person has a minimum-wage job in the city, he or she may have access to affordable housing and public transportation. In the country, the same person would have less access to affordable housing and would need to prioritize paying for a vehicle before attending to other needs. The lack of consideration of rural areas in a transit plan would ignore the reality of rural poverty.

When it comes to the effect of rural transit for seniors, a recent U.S. study stated that men outlive their driving careers by seven years, whereas women outlive theirs by ten years. As our nation ages and many people live out their lives without access to a car for more than an entire decade, the lack of a transit strategy for rural areas will become more apparent. The lack of access to a private vehicle and the transit deficiencies in rural areas will result in seniors having unmet needs.

In fact, a 2008 study showed that rural seniors have more unmet needs than their urban counterparts. Even the Senate has identified this problem. As stated in the report of the Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry in 2008, “Beyond Freefall: Halting Rural Poverty”, the lack of public transportation represents a serious problem for seniors, the disabled, and low-income rural citizens.

In fact, that report made the recommendation that the government commit to 50% federal and 50% municipal funding for new rural transportation infrastructure. It also recommended a study on how to coordinate existing rural transportation services to create a flexible network that would provide extra transportation services to rural citizens.

In Alberta, we are currently beginning the transition to deregulate bus systems. Because of changing business models and the inflexibility of an old regime, Greyhound was no longer able to serve all areas of Alberta without government support. As such, the Alberta government chose to deregulate the industry and allow smaller players to enter the industry.

However, on October 1, Greyhound halted service to multiple communities, and to date there are few people stepping in to take its place. While we are hopeful that gaps will be filled as entrepreneurs come forward, there will likely always be gaps in service. This will only exacerbate transportation issues among seniors and low-income residents. Consideration of this issue by this committee is important for rural Alberta.

Our association would classify needed transit in rural areas into two categories.

First are the commuter trips that take people from the outlying areas of a region into an industry hub or larger centre. These trips may be up to 100 kilometres one way and are daily occurrences for which most people tend to use private vehicles. Getting serious about reducing greenhouse gases, lengthening the life of road infrastructure, and making sure that people can affordably get to their jobs would involve addressing these traffic patterns within regions.

Second are the trips needed by people who do not have access to vehicles, as I previously described. These trips are less frequent and have residents finding ways to get from their communities to a larger centre. Such trips are commonly needed, whether it is for medical appointments, shopping for items not available in their communities, or visiting family.

It is this hub-and-spoke system that is under threat in Alberta and other regions. A national transit strategy would be incomplete if it failed to consider the needs of this minority as consumer demand decreases for large bus companies across Canada.

In summary, industries rooted in rural Canada—farming, forestry, fishing, and natural resources—account for more than 50% of our national exports, and they provide the energy, food, and raw materials that fuel growth in the rest of the country. Without effective and efficient rural transportation of people, goods, and services, rural Canada will not be able to continue contributing to Canada's economic success.

Therefore, cost-shared federal government funding earmarked for rural transit needs to be allocated, because we believe it is not solely the responsibility of municipal governments to fund these systems. This money must be earmarked for rural needs so that rural municipalities are not competing with urban municipalities for the same pot of money. Rural Alberta municipalities should contribute, but government funding should be made available in a fifty-fifty cost-sharing arrangement, as suggested by the Senate committee's report.

Lastly, this funding should be provided outside of what is provided via the federal gas tax fund, as that funding is already fully allocated to servicing roads, water systems, and other infrastructure in rural municipalities. The long-term infrastructure plan promised in the last budget would be the ideal program within which to earmark funds for rural transit. This program could then deal not only with, again, the infrastructure deficit, but could address the rural transit deficit as well.

Thank you for your time today. I will try to answer some of your questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you for your comments.

Just before I recognize Mr. Nicholls, the example I'll use is that the government was trying to implement a higher age for driver's licences in Manitoba, and when we complained or expressed our concerns about young people and how they move, the comment back was, “Well, use public transit”. Unfortunately, we don't have public transit, so sometimes there's a disconnect between organizations too.

Mr. Nicholls.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My question is directed more to Mr. Marit. It's so nice to have someone here from Willow Bunch No. 42.

I'm interested in some of the initiatives SARM has taken part in over the years, such as things like Clearing the Path initiative, which from my view was a partnership to align objectives and determine strategies for the challenges facing rural communities. You and your colleagues have identified that the structures and related regulations in the municipal system were sometimes an impediment to economic development in rural Saskatchewan.

Is that correct?

[David Marit]

Yes, we did.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

So I guess it was useful to have all the stakeholders come together and discuss all the difficulties you might have had. Some of the things that you found were issues were: we need to establish priorities and standards across the board; municipal funding for economic development is needed; and more forethought on economic development is needed.

I'm from a place that was more rural when I was growing up, but my riding is mostly rural, so here's my question for you. How would someone from Vaudreuil-Soulanges in Quebec hear about the great initiatives that SARM has taken?

[David Marit]

Well, thank you very much for the question. I don't know how; I guess we took the initiative and thought we had to look in the mirror at what we were doing. It was something that our membership endorsed. That was another good thing, really, that came out of it.

I guess how we could work on it with other jurisdictions could be through FCM, at one of the committee levels. There, we have what we call a rural forum at one of their committee levels, and I sit as the chair of that committee. Pretty well all the municipal organizations across Canada sit on that forum. That might be a way to do that. There were some very strong recommendations that out.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Would it not be useful to have a national forum from the federal government, where stakeholders could get together and share these things?

[David Marit]

It would be. We tried that in Edmonton a few years ago. We called it “Rural Matters!”, and AAMDC took the lead on that. We had people from rural municipalities from right across Canada in a three-day workshop format, and we came out with a living, breathing document that talked about that very issue: what rural Canada needed.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

That's great.

Now, in Clearing the Path, there was a transportation subcommittee, which you didn't sit on, but Jim Hallick did.

[David Marit]

Yes.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

So SARM had input there as well. From what I understand, they came to the conclusion that there needs to be investment in order to carry primary weights on secondary roads. But today we're talking more about transit, so that's where I'll direct my questions.

In rural Saskatchewan, that usually means inter-municipal transit, I take it?

[David Marit]

Yes.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

So we're talking about the STC or Greyhound. Those are the primary players in the market...?

[David Marit]

Right.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

I was happy because I saw that the STC had a 10% increase in ridership last year, so people seem to be valuing the service more and more, They choose to ride with the STC for various reasons, some of them being convenience, environmental benefits, and the ability to relax or be productive onboard.

The STC receives subsidies from the CIC, the Crown Investment Corporation, to fund less used routes. So it has developed a way to fund these less used routes, whereas a private company like Greyhound might cut the route because it's not profitable, correct? We have a similar service around Montreal. It's called the CIT. How could they learn from the progress that the STC has made on these issues?

[David Marit]

I don't think it's not a matter of learning. It's a matter of commitment. I think that's where the province has come to the table and that's a reason why we're here today.

STC is a corporation within the provincial boundaries that has lost money over the past few years in operations, but it does provide a vital link to approximately 260 communities in rural Saskatchewan. Not only is it a vital link for the movement of people, but it has become a huge link for the movement of goods. We're seeing freight becoming a huge part of their revenue. Many of the buses are pulling trailers and hauling freight in and out of these communities--

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

I don't want to interrupt you while you are giving your answer, but I know my time is dwindling, so I would like to go on to my next question.

[David Marit]

Sure.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

The Conservatives cut funding to rail, as did the Liberals in the 1980s. From what I understand, this impacted many rural communities. Would you be in favour of a strategy to look at how passenger rail could be rehabilitated for rural communities?

[David Marit]

I would be concerned about the logistics of it, for many reasons. With the freight movement we're seeing across Canada now, I would be very concerned about safety issues. We're seeing trains rolling through our communities--Vancouver-Toronto and Vancouver-Chicago--virtually on an hourly basis. These are trains that are a mile to a mile-and-a-half long. I'm not saying it shouldn't be looked at, but I would be concerned about safety issues.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

My next question will be directed to Ms. Kolebaba.

I understand that Greyhound is cutting 12 Alberta rural routes after the deregulation. While I don't believe the government should protect a private company in a monopoly, what are some of the ways we can move forward with in improving service on rural routes?

[Carolyn Kolebaba]

In Alberta they've decided they want to cut it, so it has been done. They are hoping that entrepreneurs will come forward and contribute.

But in certain areas, the rural and remote areas of our provinces, it is not a lucrative operation. In order for us to ensure the rural side is taken care of as well as the urban side, we need to somehow come up with a formula that best suits those areas and put it into a national transportation study that will look at how we can do that. I'm not here to tell you how to do it, but I do know it is needed, and we have to figure out a way to ensure those people have the same transportation that others do in this great land.