Transport Committee on May 9th, 2018

[Mark Romoff]

You mentioned that we have a large number of these projects across Canada. In fact, there are 267 projects.

The most active users of this model are the health care sectors. That includes the building of hospitals and the provision of long-term health care facilities. There are 97 of these projects currently being built or already in operation using this model.

The transportation sector is the other most active sector—roads, highways, bridges. Increasingly, urban transit systems are being built using this particular model, again for the same reasons, around arriving at these projects on time, on budget, and with the best value for the taxpayers' money.

[Gagan Sikand, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

My last question would be, what are the barriers that local governments face in terms of capacity when they use this partnership model?

[Mark Romoff]

In fact, the barriers are really around capacity. By that I mean familiarity with the public-private partnership approach is uneven, particularly with municipalities that don't have a long history of infrastructure investment. There is a need for those communities to understand the nature of the model and to mirror the approach taken by other more experienced municipalities. Having the advisers they need to understand how best to procure the asset and, in fact, enter into the contractual arrangements will ensure that it will be a good deal for both governments and the private sector.

[Gagan Sikand, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

I've pretty much run out of time. I'd like to thank you for your answers.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

There's one minute left.

[Mark Romoff]

Thank you for your questions.

[Gagan Sikand, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

In which case, I'll pass the time on to my colleague.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

It has to be fast.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Mr. Boston, I have a quick question for you.

Do you know of the Gloucester estates out on Highway 1? It was ripped out from underneath workers in Vancouver and put out there because the land was cheap, forcing long commutes on the workers. I presume that's exactly the sort of thing you would not want to see federal money used to support.

[Alex Boston]

Sorry, run that by me....

I do know of you, Mr. Hardie, and all of your great work with transit authorities and other entities in British Columbia.

What project was that?

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

That was the Gloucester estates. It's an industrial park.

[Alex Boston]

Oh, yes.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

They moved it from Vancouver out to the far east, and imposed huge commutes on the workers.

Could you submit to us your thoughts as to the criteria that we should use before we invest public federal funds to support transportation infrastructure in a city?

[Alex Boston]

Well, I certainly could. I have—

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Please submit that to the clerk, sir, so we could get that information. We don't have enough time to get it from you verbally today.

[Alex Boston]

Okay, we'll send that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you.

Mr. Chong.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I have a question for Mr. Boston. Perhaps I'll give him some time to talk about how the federal government can improve its infrastructure spending.

To frame the question, the federal government doesn't fund all kinds of infrastructure. We don't fund hospitals. We don't fund K-to-12 education. We generally don't fund university buildings, although there are exceptions. We do fund water and waste water, recreation from time to time, and transportation.

In particular, I want to focus on the transportation sector. I talk to constituents in my riding in the greater Toronto area. They tell me time and time again that the single thing that frustrates them the most in their day-to-day lives is commuting.

When you look at the data, you see that commute times are getting longer. People are spending more and more time sitting in traffic. They are getting increasingly frustrated about this. Despite the fact that governments have spent tens of billions of dollars in the last decade to try to fix the problem, the problem is just getting worse.

In the context of the Paris accord, and our 2030 targets, as you pointed out in your presentation, a quarter of our emissions are from transportation. Maybe you could speak to how the federal government could improve infrastructure spending to not only meet our Paris accord commitments, but to improve the quality of life for people who are trapped in traffic each and every day.

[Alex Boston]

Most fundamentally, it is simplistically using some accepted job and residential density threshold targets that are quite well accepted by transit authorities that will determine the type of infrastructure investment.

One of the things that's happening right now, in contrast to the astute observations by His Worship Mayor Savage, is many of our transit investments are not in those existing built-up areas. We're facilitating longer driving and more congestion by going into greenfield areas. We ultimately have to intensify. This is something that addresses quality of life in a huge way.

We have a housing stock that completely doesn't match our demographic reality in this country, where more than half of our houses are single family homes. Today, more than two-thirds of households have only one or two people, and by 2025 we'll have more one person households than any other type of household, and that's going to continue to grow. A lot of those people are living in single family houses. We need to provide a bunch of housing choices on the housing continuum, from high-rise to row houses, townhouses, multiplexes, right down to the single family home. That is something we have to help municipal governments do.

There's a ball of wax of policies that have inadvertently been encouraging local governments to do the wrong things. It's cheaper to do greenfield development in a farmer's field than it is to intensify because you have to rip up infrastructure and lay it again. But it's through those intensification projects that you generate the revenue necessary to operate, maintain, and replace that infrastructure. The best asset management regime in the country is actually from the Minister of Infrastructure and Communities' riding in the city of Edmonton. Every neighbourhood has to undergo an analysis of revenue streams on a life-cycle basis and expenditures. Out of more than 20 neighbourhoods that I've studied, only two have enough revenue to build, operate, maintain, and replace that infrastructure. The other 18 are going to be, ultimately, an albatross hanging around the neck of the municipality on a long-term basis because of policies we've inadvertently developed.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much, Mr. Boston.

To all of our witnesses, thank you all very much. I think we could have gone on another hour, and I can see my colleagues have questions, but maybe they can communicate with you directly.

I'm going to suspend for a moment while we disconnect, and then we have to go in camera and have a quick look at our recommendations.

Thank you.

[Proceedings continue in camera]