Transport Committee on Nov. 27th, 2018

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

I believe you're referring to navigable water jurisdiction over lakes.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Yes.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

You're right in that, traditionally, the area falls under federal jurisdiction. However, we recognize the numerous challenges that creates given the local regulations that apply to lakes.

We are currently working on that. I have to admit, it's a long-term effort, and we are trying to find a way to delegate some of that responsibility to the most appropriate authorities, meaning the municipalities. We would like to give them greater flexibility. At the same time, though, they will still be required to protect navigation activities on lakes. We are not done yet, but that's the direction we are moving in. We know that it will be a more flexible mechanism that meets municipalities' needs.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Thank you for working on that. It's a major concern for my constituents. We have huge vessels using our small lakes and causing serious damage, so we certainly welcome any progress on the issue.

I want to go to another topic. I think it's a little lighter. I think we're all very happy to hear about the InSight landing on Mars yesterday. I think you might have some particular excitement for that as well.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

Did you want my comments on it?

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

I'd like your comments on it.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

Well, I thought it was extraordinary. Beyond even space flight with humans, I think the ability to land a rover or a vehicle on Mars is the most technically demanding challenge that any spacefaring nation faces. Only the United States has ever been able to land and have an operational rover or experiment on the surface of Mars.

Now, it's early days; they've landed, but they still have to check out all the systems. I think it is a testimony to the brilliance of NASA, particularly the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, which runs all of these things. I'm very excited and will be watching very carefully what scientific results—they're going to look underground—come out of it.

I wish space were under Transport, but I haven't been successful yet with my colleague Minister Bains.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

We'll work on that.

Back to Canada, on VIA Rail, you've announced a renewal for the fleet. Do you have an update on where we're at with that?

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

VIA Rail is a Crown corporation. The Government of Canada recognized that the passenger railcar and locomotive fleet was in need of replacement. Some parts of it were over 40 years old, so we announced some time ago that VIA would launch a competition. That competition is under way, and it is open to the world.

At this point, we're looking forward to fairly shortly hearing back officially from VIA Rail on which company will be awarded the contract to replace these old passenger cars, and I know they're old because I take them every week myself between Montreal and Ottawa. I think it's very exciting. This is in the corridor between Quebec and Windsor, where the greatest amount of traffic is taking place, with the objective of having the first new vehicles coming out in 2022.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Can we expect that this will significantly improve passenger service or at least the experience?

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

I know that VIA is always striving to improve its service and its on-time record. When you have new equipment, if you get the right equipment, you're going to be spending less time doing maintenance, which helps to improve the reliability.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

That's fair.

Very quickly, you have the airports capital assistance program. Can you talk a bit about what this program is and why it's important? There are five airports in my riding, so it's always interesting to hear about possibilities.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

The airports capital assistance program has been in place for roughly 20 years, I think, and has awarded close to $900 million to our airports. Every year, there's about $38 million to $40 million that's allocated. There are many airports across the country. There are the five you mentioned in your riding.

To be eligible, you have to have.... The actual funding is for safety improvements at the airport. That can be lighting; it can be snow-clearing equipment. It has to be safety-related. There are a lot of applicants every year, so we can't do it for everybody. There is a requirement that the airports in question have a regular service for flights of at least a thousand passengers per year and that they're non-federal airports. It's a federal program that is very hotly competed for. We announce every year those airports that receive funding.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Are PPR airports eligible?

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

I'm sorry, Mr. Graham. Your time is up.

We're moving on to Mr. Badawey.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Good morning.

Thank you for being here this morning.

I'll preface my question by stating that, as Mr. Hardie recognized, when we took a trip to Niagara as well as Vancouver, we learned a great deal about the changes happening within world trade, the transport of global trade and the products contained within. We learned that our trade corridors need to be updated.

Let's face it, at the end of the day, we found out quickly how content and complacent this nation has been for the past many generations. To some extent, we are now sitting on archaic transportation assets. There's a need to be very strategic and become more of an enabler, utilizing those assets. As you mentioned, Minister, this will strengthen our nation's overall global performance. I congratulate you. After decades of contentment and complacency, with the economy suffering as a result, the efforts and the direction you're taking are much welcomed, especially in Niagara, which is one of the nation's strategic trade corridors.

With that, Minister, I have a question. Taking into consideration transport, infrastructure, labour, global affairs, environment, international trade, finance, economic development, fisheries and intergovernmental affairs and relations, how are you and Transport Canada utilizing a whole-of-government approach to invest, integrate, optimize, and update our fluidity when it comes to mobility and global trade?

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Badawey.

If I may, I will commend you for the work you're doing in the Niagara area with respect to trade corridors. That is an important entry point, particularly for trade between Canada and the United States.

I would answer your question by saying that the recent fall economic statement gives a strong hint of where we're looking at trade with respect to a whole-of-government approach. There were of course measures in our economic statement that were focused on trying to make our Canadian enterprises more competitive. The accelerated depreciation on capital investments was a good example that we believe will create jobs. Of course, if you create jobs and you make more products, you have to move those products. The significant part, although it may not have been mentioned too much, was the fact that the government took some of the funding for out-years on the national trade corridors fund and moved it forward so that we would have access to that funding.

As you know, we've had one competition. We awarded $800 million to 39 projects. There is such a strong demand for this, because there's a recognition that it is crucial for the economy to move our goods efficiently, that we welcome the fact that money for later years has been moved forward so that we can continue going out and having more projects under the national trade corridors fund, which will improve the movement of goods and will be good for the economy.

I think the government has clearly recognized the crucial function of transportation in getting our goods to market. If we don't, our clients will go elsewhere.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

I congratulate you for going to a whole-of-government approach. In my former life as a mayor, I was extremely frustrated when we had to communicate individually versus having a government that actually communicates effectively within itself.

Besides the 10 ministries I mentioned earlier, I'll add Innovation, Science and Economic Development. R and D is very important. We have encouraged universities and colleges to assist in bringing new products to market. How are you working with those different ministries to once again create the fluidity we need to expand GDP in the future? How are you working with those different ministries to ensure that we're all communicating to become more of an enabler for the transport of those goods internationally?

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

Transportation is a highly technical area. There are a lot of examples of where transportation is becoming increasingly sophisticated.

An example would be the fact that we're exploring truck platooning as a possible future method of transporting a great deal of merchandise by truck. Of course, truck platooning is where a platoon of several trucks are following each other, but there is a coordination between the trucks that's all done via technology so that they are all following each other. This is something that is being done throughout the world at the moment. Many western countries are developing this capability.

We rely on science and technology to implement this kind of system. Having been in a platoon of trucks in a demonstration at a Transport Canada facility, I must say that it is a very impressive capability. It's also fixed in such a way that the separation between trucks minimizes the aerodynamic drag on the trucks behind the first one, so you can get fuel economy as well.

Canada is working on that kind of development, not to mention autonomous vehicles, which is another area, or drones, which is also a very strongly emerging field.

In all of those cases, we need to make use of the best available technological capability, as well as the science that will help us deal with these new disruptive technologies.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much, Minister Garneau.

Mr. Liepert, you have six minutes.

[Ron Liepert, Conservative, Calgary Signal Hill, AB]

Thank you, Minister, for being here and for being here for 90 minutes.

However, I only get six, so I'd like to ask some quick questions and hopefully we can use committee-of-the-whole rules, where the answers don't exceed the length of the questions.

I want to ask you about transportation 2030. You stated, “We can have the best products in the world, but if we can't get them to our customers quickly and reliably, we will lose business to other suppliers.”

When we were in Vancouver.... The port of Vancouver has something like two billion dollars' worth of construction under way today to help get products to customers. However, the CEO of the port of Vancouver said that if Bill C-69 had been law two years ago, not one dollar of that investment would be made today.

How can you make the statements that you made about transportation 2030 and still rationalize a bill like Bill C-69 being pushed through by the Liberal government?

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

All I can say to you is that I didn't make that statement. You referred to the CEO of the port of Vancouver. He can speak for himself on that.

Bill C-69, in our opinion, is absolutely necessary because the previous government, the government that you represented, gutted a lot of the protections for the environment, which were an important part of our commitment—

[Ron Liepert, Conservative, Calgary Signal Hill, AB]

But you're the transportation minister. It's the environment minister's job to make those statements. You're the transportation minister. You're supposed to be fighting on behalf of Canadians, getting their supplies to world markets, and that's not happening with our oil and gas industry today.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

I'll be glad to tell you that we talk to each other in our government, the different ministers. We believe that we can juggle several balls at the same time.