Evidence of meeting #58 for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was projects.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
David McGuinty Liberal Ottawa South, ON
Thank you, Mayor Hepner.
If I can go back to your agreement, and to you, Mayor Corrigan, do either of your cities have economic action plan billboards within your municipal territory?
Mayor Corrigan.
Mayor, City of Surrey
Relative to the projects, yes. I believe we had them up for Bridgeview, for 96th Avenue.
Do we currently have them up for the biofuel? Yes, I'm being told we have them up for biofuel as well.
Liberal
David McGuinty Liberal Ottawa South, ON
Would you be able to provide that list and the cost of putting up those signs in your respective municipalities, if you have that? Could both of you commit to doing that?
Mayor, City of Burnaby
I will investigate and provide any information we have in that regard.
Mayor, City of Surrey
I again will check with our sign folk and do the same thing.
Liberal
David McGuinty Liberal Ottawa South, ON
In terms of other funding that's been going on in your municipalities, perhaps this is to you, Mayor Hepner, particularly with respect to your public transit. Has there been advertising in your city, on your metro system, by the federal government with respect to economic action plan advertising slogans, for example?
Liberal
David McGuinty Liberal Ottawa South, ON
Can you verify that for us and let us know one way or the other?
Mayor, City of Surrey
I don't control that. It would be through TransLink. I can make that inquiry of TransLink, certainly, as a board member.
Liberal
Liberal
David McGuinty Liberal Ottawa South, ON
Because we can't get a definitive answer from the government, we're trying to get a sense, municipality by municipality, of how much has been spent.
We do know now, Mayors, that the federal government is demanding, as a condition of receiving federal infrastructure money, that these billboards be erected in front of any project that it has a dollar in. We know that 9,850 signs have gone up and that it has cost just under $30 million. We also know that the government spent over $15,000 per car by putting up shrink-wrapped economic action plan advertising on GO Transit trains in downtown Toronto. We're very concerned about the kinds of expenditures that are going on here when we have so many important needs.
This brings me to my second theme, which is the Canada 150 infrastructure program announced by the Prime Minister last Friday. Can either of you tell me whether or not you qualify, and will you have the time to submit a bid for any of the money that's been announced or re-announced?
I just want to put a few things on the table for you. One of the top municipal infrastructure experts in the country at McGill described it, “It is an election stunt by the Prime Minister, and should be criticized as such”.
The problem is that it's managed by six regional development agencies now—broken up. There are different rules around the country and varying deadlines, as early as June 9, for example, in southern Ontario. Most of the southern Ontario municipalities are saying there is absolutely no way they will make any kind of deadline of that kind in making submissions. There are different projects that qualify. Western Canada is different from Quebec. Quebec is different from Atlantic Canada.
This really appears to have been cobbled together, rushed out, and poorly thought out in advance of the next election. It really smacks of timing, to allow different folks to announce projects in advance of the October 19 deadline.
Can you give us a sense—if you know anything about this project—of your thinking about this new fund that was rushed out last Friday, without any rhyme or reason, by the Prime Minister?
Mayor, City of Burnaby
I'm happy to comment on that because the announcement was made in my city. Unfortunately I wasn't invited. It may be because I'm a friend of Jinny Sims.
I was surprised that the announcement was made locally and that they didn't invite the local mayor to attend, and we, my entire staff, were surprised by the nature of the announcement. We have been rushing around trying to cobble together an application and trying to find suitable projects, because the 150th birthday of our country is a very important event and we want to participate in that. We want to ensure that whatever we do is significant as a statement about our respect for Canada's history and Canada's future.
In my view this was cobbled together at the last minute. It smacks of politics to me, as opposed to being a plan that looks for communities to be able to develop something that will be meaningful. That in fact was the tenor of my statement to you, that consistently there's this political overtone to anything that is done in terms of moneys being dispensed to communities, as opposed to an open process that all of us are aware of and can participate in in a way that is fair.
Conservative
Conservative
Peter Braid Conservative Kitchener—Waterloo, ON
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to our witnesses for appearing today.
I'll begin with you, Mayor Hepner. Could you explain in a nutshell why the LRT project is so important for your community?
Mayor, City of Surrey
In a nutshell, I could sum it up in one word: growth. We have 1,000 new people arriving in this city every month. We need this connectivity, given our geographic size. As I alluded to earlier in my comments, we're 350 square kilometres. We're huge. We have to find another mechanism of connecting people within the community and light rail is critically important.
Conservative
Peter Braid Conservative Kitchener—Waterloo, ON
What factors went into the decision to procure the LRT project as a P3?
Mayor, City of Surrey
I'm going to turn that over to the city manager who did the analysis.
