Evidence of meeting #108 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.
Patrick Gosselin Director, Port Policy, Department of Transport
Good morning, my name is Patrick Gosselin. I am the director of the marine port group at Transport Canada.
Your question is a good one.
We are working with the country's 18 port authorities to try to understand innovation and where it is headed. We have launched a review of port modernization. We are in consultations to determine the various elements to take into consideration. There are a number of aspects. It is also a matter of determining what needs to be implemented to create an innovative port.
Liberal
Angelo Iacono Liberal Alfred-Pellan, QC
How could an innovation strategy among the ports and in collaboration with the federal government guarantee the competitiveness of our Canadian sector?
Director, Port Policy, Department of Transport
The ports are already working together. Certain port groups are trying to innovate and are working with companies such at Blockchain and IBM. Those are two examples of cooperation. Those in charge are in discussions to determine what the barriers to information gathering are in order to move toward common innovation technology.
In addition, it's a matter of taking the various elements into consideration. It's a matter of security and safety, as well as of information flow. The information needs to be found and distributed to various clients, so that they can perform better.
Liberal
Angelo Iacono Liberal Alfred-Pellan, QC
Is Transport Canada looking into the smart city concept that could apply to ports, so that ports would become increasingly smart?
Director, Port Policy, Department of Transport
I would say that a port is now open to the community. On a daily basis, ports are responsible for working with the local community to determine how activities can be integrated into the movement of goods.
September 20th, 2018 / 9:10 a.m.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Good morning, everybody. It's nice to be back and see all of your friendly faces—well, at least friendly so far; you know the day is young.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Ms. LaFortune, you made a very interesting comment. The approach is multimodal and systems-based rather than based on the performance or capacity of individual modes. I wanted to test that a bit with you in advance of our trip to the west coast to look at the trade corridor there. That's my home territory. I had some time over the summer to have discussions about various component parts of the whole trade picture. I would intend in our questioning of the witnesses to do a bit of a deeper dive as to what they see coming in the future, what their plans are, and how well integrated those plans are. Is that not a concern? How would you contrast that with what you term a multimodal and systems-based approach?
Director General, Transportation and Economic Analysis, Chief Economist, Department of Transport
When we think about multimodal, it's based on the fact that when we have seen problems in the performance of the system, very often they are due to a lack of coordination between the different modes. That's why we push the conversation a bit more, to ensure that we improve the coordination and the planning of the different mode capacities and to determine how they can better work together to deliver or move people or merchandise with more fluidity.
This multimodal framework is really to push this conversation, not just to capture what is happening by mode—by rail, by port, by air, or through the trucking industry, for example—but to bring this picture together and get a better sense of how they interact. If they are facing some challenges in coordinating their activities, how can we, from an information perspective, or from a governance perspective through incentives, have the different people work together more effectively to develop an overall system that performs better?
In the context of the west coast, it's clearly an area we've been focusing on a lot. We launched a pilot with the Port of Vancouver, the industry, the railway, and the terminals, to bring these people together and gain a better understanding in terms of the visibility of their supply chain within a full system, to get a better appreciation of where the bottlenecks are happening, and to see how we can work together. It needs to be a kind of joint venture to address some of these issues.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
I have further questions, but I thank you for that.
We can't forget that these trade corridors operate with neighbours. There are residential areas. There are commercial areas. One of the sticking points on the west coast, for instance, is the capacity used by the West Coast Express commuter rail, which of course significantly reduces the capacity for freight movement on CP's lines.
Looking at that combination of local needs and local relationships versus—obviously—the bigger trade picture, I'm just wondering what Transport Canada's view is of things like commuter rail and the future for commuter rail, if in fact the country starts to build to the capacity and the promise of the trade agreements and to have more trade going in and out of our ports.
David, maybe that's a question for you.
Director General, Surface Transportation Policy, Department of Transport
Sure, I can handle that.
It is something we do assess. We're looking at both the passenger and the freight rail systems and how they work together. As you mentioned, there are issues sometimes, given that the demand for both is increasing. It is something we assess as projects come in—on passenger rail, for example—in terms of how the balance between those two works out. It is something we have to assess as we go forward on any commuter rail projects, in working with our partners.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Do you have any sense of the role of municipal planning in the overall performance of the transport system? Again, using metro Vancouver as an example, the major arterial roads and the provincial roads can be chockablock at the best of times. With the number of container movements on truck and the dispersal of the various places they're going to, do you consult with municipal authorities on their planning and where they would want to preserve industrial land, for example, or the warehousing sector, and so on? Do you have a good fix on those challenges in each of the major port areas?
Director General, Surface Transportation Policy, Department of Transport
I'll start, and then if anybody else wants to, they can jump in.
As projects come up, we actually develop working groups that include the different levels of government—federal, provincial and municipal. It is something we do take into consideration because every level of government has a role to play in those projects.
It's actually an important part of the process to take into account those considerations, and each level of government can bring its information and its needs into that planning process. We try to act as a facilitator on those types of projects, to bring the levels of government together in those discussions.
Liberal
Matt Jeneroux Edmonton Riverbend, CPC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, everybody, for being here today.
I'm going to split my time with my esteemed colleague Kelly Block. In the meantime, I will hopefully get a couple of questions answered.
You mentioned, Madame LaFortune, the figure of $700 million in federal investments in trade and transportation infrastructure.
Director General, International Relations and Trade Policy, Department of Transport
It's $760 million, and that was for the first round; it's not per year.
Edmonton Riverbend, CPC
Have those projects been started? Are shovels in the ground? Have they been completed? What's the status of those projects?
Director, Transportation Infrastructure Programs (West), Department of Transport
I can speak to that.
A number of projects have started. They have started construction. They started this summer. In fact, we have actually paid some claims and invoices from those projects.
Some are longer-term in nature. It's an 11-year fund. We have a number of projects that go into year seven or eight. Right now, some of those projects are doing the preliminary planning and finalizing their engineering designs so they can start construction as soon as possible.
Edmonton Riverbend, CPC
Perfect.
Is it possible to get a breakdown of which projects have and which projects haven't been started yet, and their status, under the $760-million fund?
Director, Transportation Infrastructure Programs (West), Department of Transport
If it's the will of the committee, we can go back and provide that information.
Edmonton Riverbend, CPC
I'm requesting it, yes.
We're seeing a number of ports across the country. However, there has been a lot of news of late about one point of entry into the country, which is the Windsor-Detroit crossing. I'm hoping that perhaps somebody from the witnesses here can comment on the permit that was recently provided to the Ambassador Bridge, and perhaps also comment on the status of the Gordie Howe Bridge.
Director General, Surface Transportation Policy, Department of Transport
I can take that. My understanding with regard to the Gordie Howe Bridge is that it is continuing down the path toward construction. There was an announcement earlier this summer that they were getting into the design phase. Soon there will be an announcement about the design of the Gordie Howe Bridge. That is moving forward.
In tandem is the permit for the Ambassador Bridge. They're going through their planning process and doing their due diligence in terms of the rehabilitation of the Ambassador Bridge.
