Transport Committee on May 12th, 2015

[Brock Carlton]

We don't have a specific dollar figure. We've been saying that the investment level in the 1950s and 1960s was one that is appropriate to be sustained. It's not a particular number of billions of dollars a year. We don't have that kind of precision in our analysis. I certainly would point out that roughly 5% of GDP now is an awful lot bigger number than 5% of GDP in 1960, and appropriately so. That scale of investment now is necessary in order to bring infrastructure back to a place of economic competitiveness.

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

Does that level of investment account for closing that deficit as well?

[Brock Carlton]

Over the long term it does.

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

I was wondering, too, about the dedicated public transit fund. I come from Toronto, and I live in a part of town where in the morning you go to your local subway station and stand on the platform and the trains come and they're full, and another one comes and it's full. Then there are parts of town where you wait a long time through winter, summer, and all the rest of it, for buses. There seems to be a desperation for public transit funding out there, and yet there's no new money in this budget for public transit. What's your view on that?

[Brock Carlton]

There's no new money for public transit?

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

I mean in this next year and the year following.

[Brock Carlton]

The new public transit fund is set up to respond to big projects in big cities, and those projects take time. They take time to plan, to develop, and to pull together all the financing for them. We're hoping there will be a process to start an approval mechanism not in three years but sooner, so that the planning can be put in place, and the financing can be put in place, and the money will be in place in the right timeframe.

Given that this new fund is for new infrastructure, we know it just takes time to get that new infrastructure planned and organized and ready to go. The fact that there isn't money for new infrastructure and transit in the first couple of years is just a reflection of the reality that it takes time to get organized and to plan and to do these things.

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

I'm not sure what you mean by new infrastructure, but there are plans. I know the city I live in has plans, and plans upon plans. I know a lot of other cities across this country have plans. Ought there not to have been newly dedicated public transit funding this year or next year for the plans that municipalities across this country have now?

I was looking at your blueprint for cities, which talked about hours spent every year in gridlock, and the productivity costs to our cities from gridlock. I think you priced it at $11 billion. Ought there not to be federal public transit funding this year and next year to provide relief to cities for existing public transit plans?

[Brock Carlton]

I should add to the previous comments that if the design plays out appropriately—and we're in those discussions now—the municipal governments will be able to understand when the money's going to be in play, and they'll be able to borrow against it so that they can start their projects early, knowing the federal dollars are going to come in time at a certain volume that's going to accommodate their needs as they go through a 20-year or 30-year cycle of—

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

Are there no funding mechanisms available now, financing mechanisms that cities could take advantage of more immediately?

[Brock Carlton]

From the federal government?

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

Yes.

[Brock Carlton]

I suppose in theory there's the national infrastructure component of the building Canada fund—

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

—and others, I presume.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

I let you ask the one. I'll let him finish answering it, but your time is up.

[Brock Carlton]

You asked if there was other funding. There's a national component and a provincial component in the building Canada fund.

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

No, I'm saying theoretically are there other funding mechanisms that could be put in place immediately?

[Brock Carlton]

Oh, theoretically.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

This will be your last comment.

[Brock Carlton]

One could imagine a different public transit fund if you wanted to get into the theoretical, but we're dealing with an economic reality in a context of an announcement made by a government, so we're working with that reality.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

You're out of time, Mr. Kellway.

Mr. McGuinty has the floor for three minutes.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Ms. Dedman, and Mr. Carlton, I can't tell you how much it is music to many thousands of Canadians' ears to hear you talk about the need for a Canadian equivalent of the Envision program. What's deeply frustrating about the talk is that almost 10 years ago, when the government came to power, a suite of eco-efficiency indicators had been operationalized within the federal government on materials intensity, water intensity, and energy intensity, which had been designed in conjunction with the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants. It became the floor for these kinds of initiatives. It was the program used as the model in the entire OECD.

These metrics were designed by the national round table on the environment and the economy. of course we found out that the national round table on the environment and the economy was shut down by the government because it didn't like the advice it was getting. We've lost a decade now because of this, and we're now behind the Americans. In fact, I know for a fact that Envision relied on the Canadian work to launch a lot of their early thinking. You add to that the fact that we've shut down the green procurement program in the country; we've pretty much shut down the environment and sustainable development indicators initiative of StatsCan; we've closed the climate change and atmospheric research foundation, and you have your answer. We all have our answers.

You have to understand that if you're going to address climate change and address greenhouse gases, there is a huge economic opportunity here for us to go forward and win, and no more is that pressure coming to Canadians than from the private sector. The private sector is raising questions over and over again about efficiency and standards. It's no different in the P3 area.

I want to go back to something you said, Ms. Dedman, about why we need this. The answer is in part that we need this because we need to start building with resilience to adjust and adapt to climate change, because it's here and it's not going away. As a result of that, we need to prepare for it. The hues and cries for this are coming chiefly from the private sector because they want to make money over long, long terms with their infrastructure investments, and they know it's coming.

The second reason we need this plan is that we actually have to reduce our greenhouse gases. We don't have to play with this anymore; we actually have to do it.

I'd like a reaction, if I could, to this question of resilience, adapting to climate change, and trying to reduce our greenhouse gases as a nation.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Mr. McGuinty's time will expire shortly, so go ahead and respond.

[Brock Carlton]

I'd like to respond to that one.

There is no question that there is a need for this country to look at its infrastructure from the perspective of resilience and from the perspective of the impacts of climate change and greenhouse gas emission reduction.

We believe there are great opportunities. Municipalities own directly or indirectly the sources of about 44% of the GHG emissions in this country. In individual initiatives across the country there are many interesting things happening that are addressing local GHG emission challenges.

Our concern is that there's an opportunity being missed by not creating a way of having a national perspective on this that can mobilize the knowledge and experience at the municipal level for the kinds of things municipalities are responsible for so that, rather than having municipalities left alone to do their work that needs to be done, they are supported in a framework that is all orders of government rowing in the same direction.

Some of that can be done through the building Canada fund. It would be stronger if there were a dedicated municipal component to that fund outside of the small communities component, but I think there is an opportunity that the municipalities, were that to roll up to a national level, could be a significant contributor to a national initiative, a national approach to our greenhouse gas emissions plan.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you.

Mr. Braid, you have three minutes.