Transport Committee on Sept. 24th, 2018

[Stan Korosec]

First of all, our bridge is 89 years old or something like that. It has four lanes. We're not building a new six-lane bridge because of traffic volumes. We're private sector. We looked at all the numbers and everything. In fact, Ron was going to twin his bridge, and because of traffic numbers they're not going to do it. They're going to improve the plazas.

We want to replace the bridge because the other one is old, and to have an additional lane for the trusted traders—NEXUS and FAST—so that you have a dedicated lane for them to cross the bridge. If you have a NEXUS card, it doesn't do you any good if you're sitting behind a line of non-NEXUS users. It's pretty frustrating, actually. If you have a dedicated lane where you just speed across to the booth, it helps improve the efficiency of the border and it helps sell the program.

It's an old bridge and we want to replace it. We wanted to rehab the old bridge and use it for redundancy, just like we did at Blue Water Bridge. If there's a bad accident on one bridge, you put traffic on the other bridge, or use it for special events or emergency vehicles. We have emergency vehicles crossing the border. Ambulances go to Detroit. Our U.S. permit from the coast guard says that we shall “maintain and preserve” the existing Ambassador Bridge because it's a historical site and so on. Our Canadian permit says that we have to acquire permits to demolish it before we can even start building the new bridge.

I'm no engineer, but you can't tear down half a bridge. We're kind of stuck in this quandary where we're trying to say to the United States, “You talk to Canada about this, because we're just a bridge operator here, and this issue is bigger than us.” Whatever they want to do they want to do, but why tear down some good infrastructure when we can spend our own private money and not build it...?

As far as the Gordie Howe bridge is concerned, if you put aside the politics and lawsuits and the stuff that's been going on, there isn't enough traffic to support the bridges. There just isn't. I could provide you with the report from a study that Western Washington University did a few years ago. They looked at why all the traffic volumes were going down and they dug deeper into why. They looked at what crossed the bridge—as I told you, 40% of our traffic is the auto industry—and then they looked at what's happening in the auto industry in Canada.

I grew up in Windsor. We used to have a GM transmission plant there. All of that is gone now. When you look at trade figures, if you're looking at infrastructure, don't look at dollar amounts. We have a surplus of $3 billion or whatever. We look at trucks. I would say that transmissions for 1,000 cars can fit in 100 trucks. Software for 1,000 cars can fit in one truck.

On the infrastructure side, with CBSA staffing and CBP staffing we count numbers of vehicles, not how much value is in them. A lot of people get that mixed up. When they talk about traffic volumes, they say trade is up. Yes, but it's dollar amounts. We look at what physically crosses the border.

There isn't enough volume now to support two bridges. It's going to be disastrous for both us and the Gordie Howe bridge.

[Matt Jeneroux]

Regardless, am I correct about the timeline—that the Gordie Howe bridge was being built and then you requested the permit?

[Stan Korosec]

I've been there five years. They've been trying for a permit since the early 2000s to build another Ambassador Bridge.

[Matt Jeneroux]

If the end goal is to get more Canadians and more trade across the border, the commitment to the Gordie Howe bridge happened, and then you received your permit from Minister Garneau. It still seems strange to me that, after seeing the approval of the Gordie Howe bridge—granted, you own the bridge yourselves—there was a need for you to continue with your bridge. I still struggle with why, I guess.

[Stan Korosec]

One of the early reasons in the early 2000s to justify a new bridge, which is now called the Gordie Howe bridge, was that they did a traffic study. The traffic study showed a line going straight up like this. I've never seen a traffic study go like that. It said that the Ambassador Bridge today would be at capacity, at level E service or whatever they call it. It would be gridlocked.

We're 50% below where that traffic study said we would be. I just showed you the numbers. It's pretty well flat. This line keeps going up like that.

The second justification—

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Be brief, Mr. Korosec.

[Stan Korosec]

Okay. The second justification for the Gordie Howe bridge was for it to be a redundancy to the Ambassador Bridge. If there's a terrorist attack on the Ambassador Bridge, you have the Gordie Howe bridge. If the Gordie Howe is going to be a redundancy, then you need to have something for it to be redundant with. How could they say no to our permit if it's a redundant structure?

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

You know what? Once we do actually finish, maybe in 10 minutes or so, if you don't run away, some of the members may still have other questions.

I'm going to go to Mr. Aubin for a couple of questions.

Then we have the Mayor of Thorold, who arrived a bit late. With all due respect, I'm sure the committee would be happy to give you five minutes, Mayor.

I'm going to let Mr. Aubin go first with his questions.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I have a question for Mr. Holloway.

At the very beginning of your presentation, you added to the presentations that had been given during the day, which tended to show that Canada had fallen behind the United States in terms of biometrics or modern technologies, such as the RFID used for buses.

You said something that raised a question mark in my mind. You said that it was becoming more and more difficult to train staff. From the outside, the jobs seem to be well paid, even coveted. Is the difficulty related to recruitment, given the labour shortage that we are beginning to experience everywhere? Is there a real difficulty in training those people because the work is becoming more and more complex because of technology? Could you tell me what the difficulties are in training staff?

[Llewellyn Holloway]

Thank you for the question. Actually, if I said that, I didn't mean it to come out the way you received it.

The fact of the matter is that it's both. The United States government has been having considerable difficulty filling the 2,000 spaces that it has because a lot of people can't pass the security test. There are various reasons why they're not passing. They've had difficulty filling those positions on the U.S. side. On the Canadian side, it's been a matter of money. From the time you decide that you're going to train a new CBSA officer, to the time you get through the process and get them on the line, it probably takes the best part of a year.

We've been talking.... I was with the Niagara Falls Bridge Commission for eight and a half years. During those eight and a half years, one of the primary challenges was that we had spent enormous amounts of money building infrastructure and new lanes and they weren't staffed. A perfect example is the Queenston plaza on the Lewiston-Queenston Bridge: $150 million and traffic backed up across the bridge. All these new lanes were not open because there was insufficient staff.

As well, 2017 was a horrendous year on the borders because of insufficient staff. That is being addressed because we made so much noise. It's being addressed reasonably well, which is good news. What I tried to say is that this is not sustainable on a go-forward basis because of the cost of infrastructure and the cost of staff. There's never going to be enough money.

The only option, which I said was very positive news, is that there's been huge progress made in biometrics and other computerization that will allow you to process more cars with fewer officers.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Thank you. Now I understand.

I would like another piece of information. Right now, are there any trained officers who are not working simply because of a lack of funds?

[Llewellyn Holloway]

If I understood you correctly, you asked me if there are officers who are trained and not at work because of a lack of funding. I do not know the answer to that, but I can tell you that because of the arming initiatives there are a lot of officers who are at work but who couldn't be put on the front lines because they couldn't pass the arming test, so they were in the background. There's been significant progress made on that as well.

Yes, we had to go through a long process whereby we lost a percentage of our officers, and we couldn't put them in the primary inspection lanes. They had to be in the backroom doing whatever work. They had to be accommodated, but they couldn't be accommodated on the front lines.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Okay, thank you very much.

Mr. Luciani, welcome. We realize you're a few minutes late, but we'll give you five minutes. Welcome.

[Ted Luciani, Mayor, City of Thorold]

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for having me.

First and foremost, my name is Ted Luciani. I'm the mayor of the City of Thorold right in the heart of Niagara.

The biggest thing we have in Thorold—and the two gentlemen on my left and right will attest to it as I've worked with them for years—is probably the Welland Canal, which runs right through us. Of the eight locks, four of them are in Thorold. The ships have to climb the escarpment, and they go right through Thorold.

What we're looking at from our relationship with the seaway, and we do have a great relationship with the seaway, is developing more of the lands in there for industrial use. We have some industry, but I think the canal city municipalities—there are four altogether: St. Catharines, Thorold, Welland and Port Colborne—are all looking at developing a lot more of the lands along the canal for further industrial or commercial use.

Also, from a development perspective, we had in Niagara a “grow south” strategy. In other words, with the new highway above the escarpment—Vance will tell you; he's probably already talked about it—we would have a new trade corridor between Welland and Port Colborne, and it would run to the airport in Hamilton. This would allow municipalities like Welland and Port Colborne to develop industries around this highway. We in Niagara are looking at trying to bring jobs to Niagara, and we can't bring jobs to Niagara if we don't have infrastructure like the highway and access to the canal lands so we can do some developing along there.

I'll leave it at that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much.

Are there any questions for Mr. Luciani?

We appreciate your coming. I think we've learned a lot about the area.

Vance, thank you so much on behalf of all of us for putting together such a great day. We've learned a tremendous amount, and we look forward to actually visiting some of these sites tomorrow.

Yes, Mr. Badawey.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Madam Chair, I spoke about this earlier—the take-aways and next steps—and it's in fairness to a lot of the individuals who came out and took time today, which by the way, I truly appreciate.

I know, Stan, that you came all the way from Windsor, and others came from afar.

Jean, I know that you came down from Cornwall, and you, Bruce, from Ottawa, of course. I really appreciate the time that you've taken.

In fairness and respect to them, what are the next steps as take-aways? What are your thoughts on where we're going to go from here? I mentioned some of my desires earlier with respect to convening that process of establishing that blueprint, but where do you see us going from here?

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Certainly by the end of the week, we will have had our first trip to work on this issue, and we have several meetings scheduled, based on the witness list that the clerk has received. I would expect that, at the end of the four meetings that the committee has agreed to have, we would do an interim report—if that's the wish of the committee—to the Minister of Transport and table it in the House of Commons as an interim step so that the government knows what we've heard and what the recommendations are to this point.

We'll work that out with our analysts when they put that report together. We'll review it, and table it if the committee is satisfied that it has captured what we've heard and has recommendations as to where we go from here, which quite possibly could be a second trip to the east and another trip to the west. Whether that ever happens, given the fact that we're going into an election year, at least we've tabled it and have said that part of this direction should possibly go that particular way.

That's my thought based on what we've been hearing. Collect the information, get the report from the analysts with some recommendations and table it in the House as an interim report, a first step towards establishing the corridor.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I do want to thank all of you again, and even the participants who aren't here right now. I think today the committee has heard from a great, strong, valued team when it comes to a trade corridor, with all the witnesses who came out and those who gave their thoughts on how they individually can participate, not only for their own interests but for the interests of the entire southwestern Ontario region and contributing to the overall national trade corridor strategy.

I think all of us recognize the value that we have around the table here in Niagara, Hamilton and beyond, and as far as Windsor. Once again I want to thank you for your participation. Selfishly to some extent, I also expect that this dialogue is going to continue and that, therefore, we will actually be able to nail down that blueprint and take the next steps.

Thank you to all again.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you.

The meeting is adjourned.