Transport Committee on May 12th, 2015

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

You heard today from Mr. Braid that the funding is there. I heard $5 billion a year, so these clearly are substantive funds, and we talked about that earlier. Given that, can you speculate as to why these funds are under-accessed? People are not accessing them in the municipalities or projects are not being put forward.

[Brock Carlton]

I think part of the challenge, frankly, is that there hasn't been a clear direction from the federal government in the building Canada fund to allocate or to set aside a certain percentage of funding specifically for municipal infrastructure. It's such an open playing field that it creates a challenge, because in the decision-making process there's no certainty that a certain percentage of the fund is going to be directed to the municipal governments.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

Wouldn't you also say, though, that in Victoria, B.C., they've been struggling with their waste-water management system for decades? In fact, some of the funding has been in place and they've rejected countless proposals. I mean, there are some municipal politics that happen and that I think may perhaps side-swipe certain projects that are necessary.

[Brock Carlton]

I can't comment on local specific situations, because we don't work in each individual municipality and know every dynamic.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

I understand that. I just wondered if you've heard about some instances where that may have happened.

I'm going to ask Mr. Romoff a question.

Mr. Romoff, in Vancouver we experienced the very successful Canada Line, of course, as I think you mentioned in your comments. How is this being shared across Canada in terms of a way to build that saves taxpayers' money and also manages to bring in a pretty substantive project on time and within budget?

[Mark Romoff]

First of all, Ms. Young, thank you for the question, because I was beginning to feel a little left out.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Mark Romoff]

With respect to the Canada Line, we at the council view that particular project as the shining star in the portfolio of P3 projects around Canada.

There were significant costs and unbelievable timelines to have it delivered because, of course, as you may recall, it was a facility that had to be in place before the Olympics. That brought enormous pressure to bear.

In the end, the government decided in fact to turn the project completely over to the private sector, so it is what I would call a super-P3. It turned to the private sector to design it, to build it, to arrange for private financing, to maintain the facility over the 25 to 30 years, and to operate it. It's quite remarkable and as you mentioned, it is a terrific success. In fact, ridership levels continue to grow. That is a shining star.

As a council, we focus very much on trying to build on our success stories and ensure that the lessons learned in that particular case and others are shared with the community, both with the government and with the private sector. We do that in a couple of ways.

One is that we have an annual awards program that takes place at our conference each year where we recognize those government and private sector partnerships that have been stellar, either because of the way in which the infrastructure was structured or because of the innovative financing that was put in place. In that particular project, they have it all. The Canada Line project has been written up and shared broadly around the country with all levels of government and the private sector.

At the same time, urban transit is probably the fastest growing area for infrastructure investment in Canada, so as we work with other levels of government, provinces and municipalities across the country, we're sharing the lessons learned from the Canada Line project in order to enable others to learn from the good, make sure that some of the mistakes that may have been made don't get replicated, and move ahead with successful projects.

We're seeing a lot of those elements of the success story replicated in the Ottawa LRT, the Waterloo LRT, and the Edmonton LRT, which is just under development now, and in Ontario, where there are two or three other major urban transit projects.

It's a really good one. You should be proud of that one.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

Thank you very much, and you should be proud of that one too.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you. Your time has expired.

Mr. Mai, you have five minutes.

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to thank the witnesses for being here with us today. My first questions are for Ms. Dedman.

Ms. Dedman, you spoke about a rating tool or a way to assess how sustainable projects are.

Could you tell us about how important this tool is? You said that previous governments did not use these sustainability criteria. Is that a problem? The Champlain Bridge is in my riding, and because it was poorly designed, it now needs to be quickly replaced. Failure to consider the sustainability of a project may result in unexpected costs.

Why is this tool important today?

[Kealy Dedman]

Why is it important for us to consider sustainability as we go forward with investments in infrastructure? I think the principles of sustainable development are fundamental to assuring that we are getting the best return on investment as well as looking after the environmental and social needs of today and going into the future.

At the heart of it, that's really why we need to consider sustainability with any projects going forward. Using tools such as Envision or any of the other rating systems that are out there helps through the planning stages, the design stages, and even through the operating stages to look at what the long-term impacts are and again, not just the financial benefits or the financial impacts, but the environmental and the social impacts.

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Currently is the government not looking at sustainability when the government goes forward on projects?

[Kealy Dedman]

Again, I am from the municipal perspective. My position is that of city engineer for the City of Guelph, so my position as president of the Canadian Public Works Association is the volunteer side of my desk position.

From a municipal perspective, similar to asset management, there are municipalities out there that are taking this into consideration. There are municipalities that see sustainability as an important factor going forward. I think—

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

But we'd like to see it at the federal level.

[Kealy Dedman]

I think that for consistency across the country, to ensure that we are getting the best investment for our infrastructure funds both now and into the future, that's why it's important for the federal government to take a leadership role.

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Perfect.

Mr. Carlton, in answering Ms. Young and Mr. Braid, you mentioned some of the issues with the previous building Canada fund with respect to a lack of predictability or some municipalities making submissions but not getting the money.

Can you tell us what the problems are right now? We've heard announcements regarding funds being allocated, but practically are we seeing enough projects being announced? Are the funds being well distributed quickly enough?

[Brock Carlton]

Are the funds being distributed quickly? No. I think the challenge for our members is that the federal government and the provincial and territorial governments are not necessarily prioritizing municipal infrastructure.

Whatever the criteria is for the decisions that are being made currently, there's nothing that directs the decision-makers to focus on municipal infrastructure. Therefore, decisions are being made that sometimes take the opportunities away from the municipal proponent of a project, which then go to a provincial-level project or some other piece of work that is not municipal in nature.

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

This being a federal fund, are you saying the federal government should bring in more criteria in terms of, for instance, if we want it dedicated for a specific project? What should the federal government do better in order to make sure that happens?

[Brock Carlton]

We've been on record since the day the building Canada fund was announced as saying that we felt there needed to be a clear indication from the federal government of the percentage of the building Canada fund that should be dedicated to municipal infrastructure, so that whatever the decision-making mechanisms are at the provincial and territorial level, and ultimately the federal level, there's a guideline there that says 60% or whatever that percentage is.

We were advocating, I believe, for around 60%, because municipal governments own approximately 60% of the public infrastructure in this country. We were advocating that proportionate to the ownership of public infrastructure. It made sense for us in terms of direction on how that money should be allocated as it flows through the projects that are applied for.

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Have you seen a positive response from the government on your ask?

[Brock Carlton]

No. There was a decision made that what we were putting forward would not be moved forward. The federal government made a decision in that way.

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you.

We'll now move to Mr. Watson ,for five minutes.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Thank you very much to our witnesses for appearing here today.

It was former General Rick Hillier who referred to the period from 1995 to 2005 as a decade of darkness when it came to the lack of military spending by the federal government of the day. Provinces will remember that the same decade saw significant multi-billion dollar slashes to health care and education. Could it be possible that it was also a decade of darkness when it came to federal participation and funding—direct funding—of infrastructure?

We know that from 1995 to 2000, under the national airports policy, airports were downloaded without dollars from the federal government. We know that CN was privatized. We know that the national marine policy of the day divested ports, again without dollars to flow. I think it explains....

I think, Mr. Romoff, that you used the term “underinvestment”.

Mr. Carlton, I think you referred to it as “a dip”. I have a handy chart here for 1990 out to 2022. This shows the dip you're talking about. It looks more like a crater, actually, when it comes to responsibility for that.

What are the effects of that underinvestment crater in the federal government on municipalities, this downloading of significant amounts of infrastructure and federal responsibility without dollars to flow? Is that what in part explains the infrastructure deficit that became the source of a lot of conversation around I think the mid-2000s?