Evidence of meeting #103 for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in the 42nd Parliament, 1st 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
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
I think you referred to the guidelines for online consent. That's not dealing with the use of the data; those are guidelines on how you obtain a person's consent.
Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Yes.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
Are there guidelines that the Privacy Commissioner has that outline the acceptable use of the person's personal information for a valid public policy use, or is that a tool we're missing right now?
Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Do you want to answer that?
Barbara Bucknell Director, Policy, Parliamentary Affairs and Research, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Sure.
We also have draft guidance on a provision under our law around “appropriate purposes”. It's kind of an overarching principle that an organization may collect, use, and disclose personal information for appropriate purposes.
Director, Policy, Parliamentary Affairs and Research, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Yes.
Liberal
Director, Policy, Parliamentary Affairs and Research, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
It's going to be finalized at the same time as the consent guidance.
Liberal
Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
It's imminent.
Director, Policy, Parliamentary Affairs and Research, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
It does the inverse I think of what you're saying, though. It says that these are the kinds of uses that we think are or should be considered no-go zones.
Director, Policy, Parliamentary Affairs and Research, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Yes.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
I think that's probably safer. You run the risk of not being open to what we haven't thought of yet if you go the other way.
Is that close to my three minutes?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro
Thank you very much, Mr. Therrien and Ms. Bucknell, for being here today. I think you could see that the committee is quite interested in a multitude of these issues.
We're going to suspend for a moment while our other witnesses get connected on the video conference.
Our clerk is going to distribute the changes that we made on our ocean war graves report on Monday. If you can have a look at the changes, we need to adopt them, as they were considerable.
We'll have two minutes to do that at the end of our meeting.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro
I'm calling the meeting back to order.
We welcome, from the Canadian Council for Public-Private Partnerships, Mark Romoff, President and Chief Executive Officer; from the City of Dieppe, New Brunswick, Yvon Lapierre, Mayor; and from the Halifax Regional Municipality, Mike Savage, Mayor. From Renewable Cities, we have Alex Boston, Executive Director and Fellow.
Welcome to you all. Thank you so much for finding time to engage with us again.
We will open it up with Mr. Romoff from the Canadian Council for Public-Private Partnerships.
Mark Romoff President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Council for Public-Private Partnerships
Good afternoon, and thank you, Madam Chair, members of the committee, and Madam Clerk, for inviting the Canadian Council for Public-Private Partnerships to speak about the progress and challenges of the federal government's long-term infrastructure plan.
As the committee is aware, Canada, like all countries around the world, is confronting a significant infrastructure deficit while facing the additional challenge of fiscal restraint. The federal government, provinces, territories, and municipalities have nonetheless stepped up to the plate, earmarking significant funding to address this priority issue. The federal government is moving ahead with its ambitious $186-billion Investing in Canada plan, and notably the Government of Ontario is implementing an equally aggressive $190-billion 10-year plan.
Our council is a national not-for-profit member-based association, consisting of nearly 400 public and private sector organizations, which works closely with governments at all levels to enable them to become smarter, more innovative, and more effective at delivering infrastructure in Canada. I should add that the council is not a lobby group. Rather, we partner with governments to achieve the very best performance and return on their infrastructure investments.
While we are proponents of public-private partnerships, or P3s, we also recognize that they are not a panacea. If used for the right reasons, and on the right projects, they have delivered very strong economic outcomes in terms of projects being delivered on time and on budget and with excellent value for taxpayers. P3s have become a key tool in the tool kit for governments in delivering major infrastructure assets, and Canada has become a world leader in this sector. We now have 276 projects across the country and across a wide range of sectors, including transportation, health care, water and waste water, justice, energy, and broadband, to name but a few. The value of these projects that have reached financial close, which is to say they are either already in operation or under construction, now exceeds $125 billion.
The council is also actively engaged with indigenous communities across the country, who, as you know, are facing serious infrastructure deficits in the order of $30 billion to $40 billion, related principally to water and waste water, housing, schools, and broadband connectivity shortcomings, which must be addressed.
As a council, we have been pleased to see those historic investments made in infrastructure by governments. They signal that Canadians and their governments recognize that investing in infrastructure creates jobs, grows the economy, increases productivity, improves quality of life, and increases health and safety. In this regard, the government's Investing in Canada plan is to be commended. Notably the program targets high-priority sectors, including public transit and social and green infrastructure, as well as needed improvements to trade corridors. It also includes new innovations, such as the Canada Infrastructure Bank and the smart cities challenge.
Progress on the implementation of the infrastructure plan is being made. It's our understanding that over 28,000 projects have been approved under phase one and many provincial and territorial agreements are in place for phase two funding.
We're also well aware of the concern around the speed at which infrastructure plans are moving ahead. I'll leave it to others to determine what success on that front would be, but I do want to offer a few observations.
Negotiating federal-provincial deals does take time, on both sides, and there is no advantage to either party in rushing the process. Given the degree of infrastructure investment in the past decade, there are fewer shovel-ready projects than there were in the past. Bigger, more complex projects are now becoming the norm, and properly planning and executing these projects does and should take time.
Money flow does not always strictly follow project approval. For example, with P3 projects, the money may not flow at all until the project has reached substantial completion, because the private sector is taking on the construction risk and putting its own money on the table and does not get paid until it delivers.
We do, however, have a few suggestions that could improve the overall ability of government to build capacity, get infrastructure built faster, and deliver the best value and return on investment for taxpayers.
First, the reality is that when talking—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro
Mr. Romoff, I'm sorry to interrupt. Could we get your closing comments? We have to restrict everybody to five minutes to give members a chance to ask their questions.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Council for Public-Private Partnerships
Okay, I'm just going to make four quick points and I'll be done.
Here are our suggestions: First, the reality is that when talking about infrastructure projects, cash flow is not really an appropriate indicator of economic activity. As I've just mentioned, projects don't flow quickly, because of the construction period. Also, because projects, particularly P3s, incorporate a life-cycle maintenance component for a period of 25 to 35 years, that structure precludes early disbursement of the dollars. For these reasons, we would recommend that project approvals and project starts be more realistic indicators of the success of the infrastructure plan.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro
Thank you very much, Mr. Romoff. We'll have to try to get those other recommendations in as you answer some questions from the committee.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Council for Public-Private Partnerships
That will be fine.
Thank you very much.