Transport Committee on May 5th, 2015

[Matthew Kellway, NDP, Beaches—East York, ON]

In terms of the sustainability of funding for infrastructure, how do you measure that? How do you get a sense, for example, of growth in the value of the assets to date? How do you plan for that kind of growth going out into the future and determine appropriate funding for that?

[Jeff Moore]

From our perspective, we don't manage any of the projects or any of the assets. We're basically a funding partner with provinces and territories. From that perspective we provide some funding through the provinces and territories to municipalities. The gas tax fund would be a great example of that, where predominantly the funding flows through provinces and territories, and then on to the municipalities based on a prorated perspective. The gas tax fund we've indexed now, so there's a growth factor involved in that to meet the increasing needs of infrastructure in municipalities.

[Matthew Kellway, NDP, Beaches—East York, ON]

Kind of as a policy perspective, if you're—

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

You're right on the cusp, but finish your comment.

[Matthew Kellway, NDP, Beaches—East York, ON]

Thank you very much.

From a policy perspective, given your comments about how critical infrastructure is to the environment, social issues, and economic issues, how then do you determine what kind of investments need to be made to maximize the benefits of that infrastructure?

[Jeff Moore]

Can I answer the question?

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Yes, you can. Give a brief response.

[Jeff Moore]

You have to look at our programs as kind of a continuum of interventions on the part of the federal government. If you look at the gas tax fund, it's a transfer of funding to municipalities, which allows the municipalities to make their own decisions with respect to their priorities. We don't get directly involved with municipalities in terms of priority setting.

The same thing could be said with our provincial-territorial infrastructure component program under the new building Canada fund, where we leave it up to provinces and territories to determine priorities within their own jurisdictions. They will more than likely consult with municipalities and other asset holders to determine what the priorities are going to be. They provide us with priority lists of products, which we then do a review on.

The only case in which we prioritize projects to a certain extent would be under the national infrastructure component of the new building Canada fund, or the $4 billion fund, where we assess projects that are of national significance in Canada. Those could be port projects, road or major highway projects, rail projects, and so on.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Mr. McGuinty, you have seven minutes.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Moore and colleagues, are you in a position to comment on numbers, budgets? You're the ADM of policy—isn't that right?—so you have a pretty good grasp of the numbers.

[Jeff Moore]

We can certainly try, yes.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Our reading of the estimates for 2015-16 is that there's an $80-million cut at the Office of Infrastructure of Canada—a 2% cut. Is that a correct reading?

[Jeff Moore]

Let me begin by saying that the question typically is: why is Infrastructure Canada's spending decreased since the end of the 2007 Building Canada fund? When you look at the 2013-14 main estimates they show that our authorities were about $3.9 billion in voted appropriations. In 2014 our voted appropriations dropped to $1.3 billion, and in 2015-16 we plan to spend about $1.6 billion. I'm assuming that's the question you're trying to get at. The explanation behind the decrease is that it's not a program cut in itself.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

What is it?

[Jeff Moore]

The way to explain it is that between 2013-14 and 2014-15, the main estimates showed a $2.5-billion decrease in the level of Infrastructure Canada's contribution funding under voted appropriations. This is funding for our infrastructure programs. The most significant reason for this drop is that the gas tax fund was made permanent through legislation and thus no longer appears as a voted appropriation in the main estimates but rather as a statutory item. That explains $2 billion of that decrease.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Okay. I'm looking at plain reading of the 2015-16 estimates. That's a pretty convoluted answer for any Canadian who is watching or listening or reading this. They don't understand a word of what you just talked about. In 2015-16, it shows an $80-million drop, a 2% drop. Is that a proper reading of the estimates? Have I got this right or wrong?

[Jeff Moore]

Again the way to explain it is that there hasn't been a funding cut. What's happened is that—

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Has there been a decrease?

[Jeff Moore]

Overall, there has not been a decrease in our funding.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Okay. Let's move on. We're not making progress on that. Let's go to the next question.

You have an interesting presentation here on comparative expenditures here in the OECD. You say it's 3.9% of GDP. Is that number, 3.9% of GDP, all federal support, or is that federal, provincial, municipal combined support to hit the 3.9% number? It's in your notes.

[Stephanie Tanton]

I believe it's all public funding.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

So it's coming along.

[Stephanie Tanton]

I'd have to confirm.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

I think that's probably right—3.9%. So that's not the federal contribution at all. That's a combination of federal, provincial, and municipal together. Isn't that right?

What would be very helpful for this committee is to actually get a number in terms of what the federal government is putting into infrastructure and what percentage of GDP that is compared to OECD countries and their federal contributions. Can we get that number?

[Jeff Moore]

I will certainly endeavour to provide that to the committee.