Evidence of meeting #109 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 border.
Assistant Vice-President, Domestic, Intermodal and Automotive, Canadian National Railway Company
We do have conversations. I don't think they're as well defined, as I mentioned, as daily shared measures. That's what drives all organizations, right?
Assistant Vice-President, Domestic, Intermodal and Automotive, Canadian National Railway Company
It's a matter of bringing it forward that we'll work together. It's very simple. It comes down to what your shared goals and shared measures are on a daily basis.
Liberal
Vance Badawey Liberal Niagara Centre, ON
Do you think it would be advantageous if someone took the lead and facilitated that very discussion to actually put forward for this region a trade corridor strategy, simply because of the strength that we have to contribute to the overall global performance as it relates to the movement of trade, and therefore the economy, and really solidify a trade corridor strategy so that the communication, integration and funding needs can be satisfied?
Assistant Vice-President, Domestic, Intermodal and Automotive, Canadian National Railway Company
It totally makes sense, from my point of view. I'd welcome everyone else's opinion on that as well.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro
I'm sorry, Mr. Badawey, we've run out of time now. I think we would all agree, though, that it would be great if we could talk about that tonight in the round table discussion and have it thought through a bit more.
Thank you all very much. That was a very interesting panel. We look forward to seeing you later.
We'll suspend for a moment while we change panels.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro
Would our next presenters please come to the table.
I hope that you were able to solve those problems while you were all in discussion. Vance, were you able to solve some of those problems?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro
All right.
From the City of Port Colborne, we have Scott Luey, chief administrative officer; and from Niagara Region, we have Jayesh Menon, coordinator, foreign trade zone.
Do we have anyone from the Tourism Partnership of Niagara? He's not here. Okay, maybe he'll be here later.
Gentlemen, welcome and thank you very much for taking the time to come and speak to us today.
Mr. Luey, would you like to go first?
Scott Luey Chief Administrative Officer, City of Port Colborne
Sure. I've prepared a few remarks.
Hello, thank you for providing me the opportunity to speak to you this afternoon. I am the chief administrative officer of the City of Port Colborne. We are a small municipality of just over 18,000 people on the north shore of Lake Erie in the Niagara region.
The experience I'd like to share with you today is probably different from what you heard from others. The experience I'd like to share is that of trying to administer a small municipality in a competitive environment of trying to execute economic development initiatives, residential growth, and bringing industrial, commercial and residential prosperity to our community.
In Port Colborne, council and staff have made all the right moves. They have invested in infrastructure including water, waste water, recreation, roads and bridges. We have a beautiful new health and wellness centre that includes two hockey rinks as well as a walking track, pool, gymnasiums and fitness centre. Past councils have created an industrial park that is virtually completely built out, and the city is preparing to bring more industrial lands on line.
But that's not all that the city has done. When rail service in our municipality was threatened, the city stepped in to take over the tracks and enter into a lease arrangement with a local operator. When the federal government was—
Am I going too fast? Sorry.
Chief Administrative Officer, City of Port Colborne
Okay, I can go a bit slower.
We stepped into another area when the federal government was divesting itself of the local grain elevator on Lake Erie. The city stepped in to acquire it, and entered into a lease agreement with an operator in that case, too.
Sometimes it feels like we're going it alone down here. In the Niagara area and Port Colborne, in particular, upper levels of government have not kept pace with our efforts. Highway connectivity is woefully inadequate in Port Colborne, and the Welland Canal has been poorly administered from the perspective of maintaining the existing infrastructure and unlocking seaway-held lands to provide economic development opportunities in the city.
Port Colborne is connected to its neighbouring municipalities, Wainfleet, Welland and Fort Erie, by two-lane roads. The provincial Highway 406 terminates several kilometres north of the city. Access to the greater Toronto and Hamilton area is through the 406 and the Queen Elizabeth Way. This highway network is the subject of significant volumes of traffic, which is near gridlock during rush periods, and there is no redundancy in the form of alternate routes in the event of closures. For example, just this past Thursday, the Queen Elizabeth Way was closed in both directions for several hours due to an accident and downed power lines. The bottleneck is insurmountable for the flow of goods and people.
However, there is a solution. The previously planned mid-peninsula corridor would connect the Queen Elizabeth Way between Fort Erie and Niagara Falls, near the border with the United States, to Highways 403, 401 and 402 in western Ontario. It would also provide a redundant link to the greater Toronto and Hamilton area, mirroring the Queen Elizabeth Way. The project must proceed to connect Niagara, its industries and its border crossings to the national supply chain. I implore the federal government to join with the province in establishing this important connection for the benefit of the entire country.
On the issue of the seaway, one of the most important transportation and economic development assets in Niagara is the Welland Canal. The canal is administered by the St. Lawrence Seaway Management Corporation. Neglected maintenance and lack of capital improvements have had a direct impact on economic development in Port Colborne. In particular, south of Lock 8, near the mouth of the canal, are a series of wharves that have been undermined due to deteriorating conditions of the cribbing below the water surface. These wharves represent prime canal-side industrial land that could easily be leased and contribute to employment and industry in the city. Furthermore, near the same area, there are tie-up walls along the canal that have been allowed to fill in to depths that are too shallow to accommodate many types of vessels, including Great Lakes cruise ships that could bring tourists to the city's downtown core.
In addition to the lack of maintenance of the Welland Canal, there is also an economic development concern with a large amount of land that is owned by the seaway in Niagara in the form of a buffer along the canal. In the past, the seaway has been reluctant to encourage development on these industrial lands. There is currently a shortage of industrial land in Port Colborne and in Niagara as a whole, yet the municipalities in Niagara stand on the sidelines looking at the potential of the seaway's holdings unable to act to develop these as employment lands.
It is imperative for the prosperity of Port Colborne and the Niagara region that the seaway and the federal government make renewed investments in the Welland Canal infrastructure and undertake to partner with municipalities to unlock employment lands along the length of the Welland Canal. This investment will open up employment lands in Niagara and create multimodal transportation assets to form a trade corridor. This in turn will establish fluidity in the movement of goods, connecting the city and region to the national supply chain.
Once again, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today.
The City of Port Colborne and the region of Niagara are ready to sit at the table to chart a path forward for our shared prosperity.
Jayesh Menon Coordinator, Foreign Trade Zone, Niagara Region
Thank you very much for inviting me as a witness to the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities.
I'm Jayesh Menon, representative of the Niagara foreign trade zone located in Fort Erie. It is the first foreign trade zone established in Ontario.
Niagara is an international border crossing that includes a robust multimodal transportation network. As businesses around the globe grapple with ever-increasing challenges of moving goods and services between countries, decisions made daily that impact trade and transportation systems are vital. Also, this gives rise to the concept of foreign trade zones, which remains a viable, fundamental option for any organization to consider.
The Niagara foreign trade zone is a single point of access to information on export-related government policies and programs that can greatly improve a company's operating costs and overall competitiveness. The Niagara foreign trade zone point happens to be the first foreign trade zone point in Ontario. There are nine of us in the country. This point promotes the use of federal, provincial and regional programs that support export development. In Niagara, this partnership has been between Niagara Region and the Niagara Development Corridor Partnership, an incorporated consortium of the Niagara Falls, St. Catharines, Welland, Port Colborne, Fort Erie, and Lincoln economic development offices. I am the conduit, and we all work together as a co-operative team.
As foreign trade zone coordinator, I have a dual role. One, I help our companies learn about export-related trade incentives and opportunities; therefore, I work as expediter for them. Two, I facilitate foreign direct investment through inbound missions, connecting through foreign trade centres, and later, lead outbound missions for identified markets.
The main goal of a foreign trade zone point is to help businesses reduce administrative costs and burdens associated with international trade by facilitating access to various trade programs available to importers and exporters in Canada. Just to give you insight into what has happened in the past year and a half, we have a consolidated database of 400 companies across various sectors, manufacturing services, and so on. I personally have reached out to almost 150 companies, and we have, to date, 42 Niagara foreign trade zone clients we are serving.
Those services typically involve the companies going in for duty or tax exemption programs, or for parking their goods in a customs bonded warehouse, or it could be absolutely in terms of helping these companies into international markets. That's what we refer to as market development programs. They come in to understand the information that is available in terms of government incentives and programs.
I bring to you also a message from economic development director Domenic Ursini, on behalf of Niagara Region, which I want to read into the record. He has written:
[W]e would like to outline for you two key strategies that encompass the area of transportation. The first pertains to an east-west corridor that would run from the border in Fort Erie all the way to the Hamilton airport.
That is what we refer to as the mid-peninsula corridor. He continues:
This much needed transportation route would serve as the key travel for commercial vehicles moving goods amongst geographies including the export market. Furthermore, this would in turn alleviate the congestion currently in place for pedestrian traffic looking to travel to work and/or come to Niagara for its numerous tourism offerings and beauty. In order to achieve this much discussed vision, it will require the collaboration of both the province and federal government to assist in the moving forward of environmental assessment and capital commitments for construction. This will prove effective in creating further synergies amongst the Niagara and Hamilton economies along with export into the United States. It will also play a role in Niagara's efforts to explore an industrial hub of land between Fort Erie and Niagara Falls along the QEW corridor. We look forward to working with your committee on this very important initiative.
The second pertains to the establishment of a commercial port here in Niagara along the Welland Canal System. In working closely with our colleagues at the Hamilton Port Authority, it has become evident that the demand for this venue far exceeds the supply currently in place. In fact, Hamilton Port Authority is at over capacity. A Niagara port provides a strategic location for commerce activity given its logistical proximity to both GTHA and eastern United States. Within a one day's drive, Niagara is situated next to 2 Canadian provinces, nine U.S. states and approximately half of the entire American population. This port would serve as an economic engine within the Niagara market and also provide another strategic advantage to the prospective global and national companies looking to relocate for commerce. Finally, the port would also fit well with Niagara's Foreign Trade Zone and our commitment to fostering this into a fully functional free trade zone. Again, we look forward to working with the federal government to bring these very important economic initiatives to fruition.
Thank you.
Edmonton Riverbend, CPC
Thank you both. I suspect you didn't have to travel far to be here, being from the region.
Mr. Luey, I pulled up Port Colborne on the map here, and it looks beautiful. There's even a street named Sugarloaf Street, which I think would be a tourist attraction itself.
I'm curious as to some of the comments you made about the seaway lands. Pardon my ignorance, but who owns the seaway lands now?
Chief Administrative Officer, City of Port Colborne
Through the chair to the member, my understanding is that there are Transport Canada lands and seaway lands. They are owned, I guess, by the federal government, but they are part of what the seaway manages in the management of the corporation.
In my own words, the issue is that the seaway is very good at what it does. What it does is shipping. I have good working relationships with folks at the seaway, and there is a little better communication around the area of economic development and industrial lands. In fact, I'm working with someone at the seaway who is actively trying to market a piece of land, but up until now we haven't had very much success. I think one of the reasons is the incentive isn't there to put those lands to work, while seaway is, I think in my own words, concerned with moving traffic through the canal, which should be their number one priority.
Chief Administrative Officer, City of Port Colborne
I have discussions with the St. Lawrence Seaway staff.
Edmonton Riverbend, CPC
The guys who were before us, St. Lawrence Seaway Management Corporation.
Edmonton Riverbend, CPC
Looking on the map, it looks like it's a terrific piece of property, if you will, to pursue development.
Is your hurdle with the St. Lawrence Seaway Management Corporation or with Transport Canada in getting some economic development opportunities?