Transport Committee on March 10th, 2015

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

I notice there is increased expenditure for the St. Lawrence Seaway Management Corporation. I believe it's a capital investment related to the modernization project there. Can anyone explain what's being undertaken in the modernization project?

[Lisa Raitt, Conservative, Halton, ON]

One of the key aspects of the St. Lawrence seaway system is that you continuously have to make sure that you are keeping the capital asset going. It really is a jewel.

The St. Lawrence system is unique in the world. It connects our interior lakes to the Atlantic Ocean, and it's something that was built over 50 years ago that we need to look after. That is why I am happy to see that we have increased statutory authorities, proposing an increase of $35.5 million to ensure that they have the ability to continue to do what they need to do in the St. Lawrence system to make sure that our travel and our goods are moving as best they can.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Very good.

I notice that, with respect to Transport Canada, there is a decrease relative to the DRIC project. As I understand it, this reflects the funds' transfer to the border authority for on-site management and the fact that Transport Canada is not doing the day-to-day oversight of that particular project. Is that a fair assessment?

[Lisa Raitt, Conservative, Halton, ON]

That is correct.

Now that we've set up the crown corporation, Transport Canada is moving out of that space, and the WDBA is moving into that space, and that's what you're reflecting there. You'll also see in the supplementary estimates a request for money for the WDBA.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

That will be related, I presume, to a site selection for the authorities' offices, staffing up, and other related items. Is that correct?

[Lisa Raitt, Conservative, Halton, ON]

I'm very happy that they continue to staff up. I'm very happy that we have hires down there and that we've had such a great response from people who are excited about the project and want to work on the project. We had the announcement this week by the WDBA of a capital market committee of pre-eminent Canadians who want to help the government to ensure that we get best value for dollar and good value for the taxpayer with respect to the building of this bridge and a private-public partnership.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

I'm looking at the estimates relative to CATSA. An item that has come before the House very recently relates to non-designated airports and whether or not there will be a mechanism for non-designated airports to, on a cost-recovery basis, access CATSA services. Is there an update for the committee relative to that particular item?

[Lisa Raitt, Conservative, Halton, ON]

Yes. One of the key requests we've been working on, actually since July of 2013, has been a request from some smaller airports that currently do not enjoy security services at the airports and want to be able to purchase these services from the Canadian government. There unfortunately is a lot of red tape between them having that and us being able to do that.

We're continuously working on those matters. We've sent letters to airports that have expressed interest in the past. Some have written back to express that they are still indeed interested, but we have to do what we need to do in terms of Transport Canada to ensure that we can do this with the right policy coverage.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

I'm sorry, but your time has expired.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

I'll now move to Mr. Komarnicki for seven minutes.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Thank you, Chair.

I have a couple of questions in two unrelated areas. The first is with respect to hauling grain from the prairies. You obviously had a significant crop, what may be a once in a lifetime bumper-type crop, but there are other commodities besides the grain commodity. I know that we've taken measures to ensure that minimum quantities are hauled, and you've done a good job in that area.

There's been enough finger pointing in the various aspects of the transportation system, but one of the issues the shippers raised is whether we maybe should be looking beyond just minimum quantities. You've mentioned in your main points here that we need “modern measures for modern times”. When we look at the capacity issue, the question always is whether we are looking at what the demand is going to be down the road and whether there are enough dollars being spent in capital assets, the physical assets, to meet that demand, not only in the grain industry, which is of course important to the prairies, but in other industries as well.

You mentioned that Mr. Emerson was in the committee and they were looking at things. One of the other issues they talked about is having some basic levels of service that objectively can be understood by the parties, and also about how, if they weren't met, there perhaps could be consequences, in order to ensure that. When you're only dealing with not necessarily a competitive market, that makes this whole issue rather difficult.

Has the department been looking at all of those issues, and is the committee looking at those issues? Perhaps you might comment on that.

[Lisa Raitt, Conservative, Halton, ON]

It would be my pleasure.

Of course, the review that's being undertaken by Mr. Emerson is at arm's length from us, and that's the way it should be. He has a secretariat, and he has a panel that is receiving submissions from across the country. What I understand is that there have been numerous submissions made, which is good news. Indeed, when I speak at events, I always encourage the stakeholders in the room: if they have an opinion on something, they really should bring it forth. This is our opportunity to take a look at what we currently have and how to change it for the better for the future.

I know that the panel is seized with the issue with respect to grain delivery. I know there are concerns not only about the costs associated with transportation, but with the levels of service as well. We've been through a number of reviews of service levels in the rail system in the past number of years, and we of course passed the Fair Rail for Grain Farmers bill last year, which was very important too. It added to the tools that I would say shippers have with respect to ensuring that they get good and fair rail service to their place of work.

That said, we still do need to take a look at it in the bigger picture of what other commodities are involved. If you say that there's going to be a minimum volume of one commodity, do the other commodities worry that they're not going to have the same kind of service? We've been balancing those as best we can.

What I look forward to, coming out of the panel's review, the panel's analysis, and some recommendations for the future, is what the system will really look like in a world where we are developing and signing more free trade deals and we want to expand and open up markets. We want to increase the goods that we're shipping out of the country and the goods that we're shipping into the country as well. They're all connected by that rail line. That ribbon of steel is incredibly important, and we want to make sure that whatever we put in place is going to positively enhance our ability to move a good supply chain.

The department as well has some good round tables with respect to commodity supply chains, where we bring the parties together to talk about it. I've met with the Mining Association of Canada. My colleagues have met with the agricultural aspects of the rail shipping lines. We need to continue to come up with the bigger-picture solve on this, and not just try to think where we should be going, but really understand fully where we want to be and get there. I do believe that it's Mr. Emerson and his committee that will help us get there.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

I appreciate that, Minister, and I realize that we have to go beyond just moving around assets to serve the existing needs when there are developing demands. We need to be responsive to that if we want to ensure our economy continues to prosper as it has.

The other area is the area you mentioned relating to unmanned aerial vehicles. I know that in the news lately there have been a number of concerns, because these are readily available at not very much cost at RadioShack or The Source or other places.

Of course, there are security concerns and also privacy concerns, and the public is obviously very in tune with that, but at the same time, I have constituents who have legitimate uses for those particular UAVs. I look at the farming community. Farmers could use them for crop inspection. They'd like to hire someone to do that for them. There are realtors and developers who would like to be able to take photos of areas that they wish to develop. There are things like this that are commercial in use and are advantageous for them, and of course it's a service that is legitimate.

There's a host of others. I know that on the American side they've asked for public comment. They're coming up with some regulations and so on. The areas of use are those such as research and development, power line inspection, pipeline inspections, rescue operations, bridge inspections, and aerial photography. There's a host of other niche areas that are certainly areas where these can be used very effectively. The issue of course is safety, and there's of course the issue of privacy and security, but in all of that, technology is advancing and expanding and we need to be responsive to that.

I just wondered about maybe having you reiterate what the department's views are and its position going forward and in the present.

[Lisa Raitt, Conservative, Halton, ON]

Thank you very much.

Coming from the position of a mother of a 13-year-old who probably wants to have a UAV for Christmas next year, I would say that the primary thrust has to be about safety and ensuring that recreational users understand that these are still pieces of machinery that fly above people's heads and houses, they need to be operated with care and out of airport space, and there are certain rules and regulations. Last year, we developed and started a public awareness campaign. You may find that on social media or on the Internet, and certainly we did a number of announcements. That's one aspect of it.

The part you were talking about, though, has to do with the commercial aspect. We did find that there was an increase in the number of people who were applying for these special purpose operator certificates. As a result, there was a complaint about how much paperwork there was and, indeed, how long it took for the certificate to be turned around. I'm happy to report that the department has worked diligently on this, and they have lowered their service standard time turnarounds.

Maybe Laureen can give us a little more colour on that.

[Laureen Kinney]

As the minister said, we went into an intensive scrutiny of our process. We brought into that discussion our regional staff. We also talked to users about what they were trying to use the equipment for, as was just outlined. We took a very hard look at what were the actual safety issues and what was different about a UAV versus an aircraft, etc. Through that process, we developed a set of exemptions that were standard exemptions that could be applied in certain cases, with standard conditions on what would create the safety regime around that.

That was put into place in November, along with additional guidelines to our staff members to provide consistency and streamlining of the paper process, and we put up some information on the web on how applications could be requested. That's turned around the response time considerably. I don't have a number, but it certainly has increased it dramatically, and that process is under way.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you very much.

Your time has expired.

Now I'll move to Mr. Masse for five minutes. I understand you're splitting with Mr. Sullivan?

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Madam Minister, for being here.

You aptly noted that we are paying $250 million for the U.S. Customs plaza of the Windsor-Detroit crossing. We also are paying $550 million for land acquisition and roadway in Michigan. Is that money going to come from tolls as well?

[Lisa Raitt, Conservative, Halton, ON]

The entire operation, the planning, and the facilitation of the purchases are all coming from the appropriations from Parliament, but they're also going to be recovered through the tolling process. That's always been the intention of the government.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Okay, but what gives me concern a little bit about that is the pricing of the crossings in terms of the tolls and what they're going to be. We're doing a P3, there will be a profit margin in there, we're up to almost a billion dollars with regard to the process right now, and the reality is that it will be Canadian companies and individuals who'll also be paying these tolls. We will have Canadians paying a disproportionate share because the tolls will come from their pockets. They'll come from people in my community. They'll come from companies that are serving in Canada. They'll be paying for that American plaza.

Has an economic analysis been done on how the extensive borrowing that we are now into, and paying for by ourselves, will impact the toll rate, or on how many years will it take us to recover them—40 or 50?

[Lisa Raitt, Conservative, Halton, ON]

In terms of the analysis, yes, fulsome analysis goes into any of the projects that are put forth through Treasury Board. There's rigorous debate with officials with respect to projects.

The decision was taken, for very good reasons, that we need to proceed with the building of this bridge. I mean, think about it; you know that the Ambassador Bridge is 84 years old. When it was built, it was built for a 50-year lifespan. We've well exceeded it. It's only four lanes. You know there are traffic jams on either side. If we didn't go ahead and continue to ensure that the project went forth in a timely manner, which is what the decision was, it wasn't going to happen.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

But the reality is that Canadians will be paying for that American side through those tolls that we have to pay. The U.S. budgeted $3.5 trillion: we never got a single nickel out of them. How could this happen?

[Lisa Raitt, Conservative, Halton, ON]

The deputy here makes a good point, that currently with respect to the Ambassador Bridge you would say the same thing, that it's Canadians who are making sure that Mr. Moroun is making the profit he's making on that bridge.

That being said, you must agree with me that this is a bridge that needs to happen. You've said that yourself. We're just making sure that we're going to be getting it done. We can talk about the methodology—

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

I've been working on this for 15 years. I know how important it is. It's also important how it gets done, and that's my concern, that now we're also going to add: what will the profit margin be for the P3 on this? What percentage will they get for this?

[Lisa Raitt, Conservative, Halton, ON]

When the decision was taken to include the U.S. Customs point of entry plaza into the entire WDBA portfolio, it was analyzed with respect to the tolling and how long it would take to recover. It still came out with the determination that it was a sound project and that there will be market uptake. We will see the interest in this when we get to the point of request for qualifications and RFPs.