Transport Committee on May 14th, 2019

[Randy Jones]

Thank you very much for the question.

First of all, two weeks ago, we had the people come in from Transports Québec and announce that two sections of road will be done: from La Romaine to Kégaska, and from La Tabatière—my own town—to Tête-à-la-Baleine. There are some 80 kilometres of road that have to be completed within the next five years.

With the mayors and the Innu chiefs of all of the north shore, and the grand chief, we went to Ottawa in December and again met with Minister Champagne in Sept-Îles. We had representation from western Labrador, the mayor of Goose Bay, the mayor of...not Labrador City, but the other one that's right next to it—

[Churence Rogers, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

Wabush.

[Randy Jones]

Yes, Wabush, plus we had a letter.... I have to come to climate change. We only get one vessel a week from the month of April until the middle part of January, and we've been missing that. If you don't get your fresh fruit and vegetables that week, like Mayor Gros just said, the produce is completely no good. If you don't get to the store right away when that stuff gets in, within an hour it's gone, because there's only one trip a week.

We also had representation from the Innu chiefs. I've been working hand in hand with Unamen Shipu, Pakuashipi, Mingan and Seven Islands, and all the mayors from Tadoussac to Blanc-Sablon were—

[Churence Rogers, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

Mayor Jones, if I could interrupt, I thank you for that. Could you just give me a snapshot—

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Make it very short.

[Churence Rogers, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

—of what you think your region would look like if Route 138 were completed?

[Randy Jones]

You wouldn't believe it. You look at the map and you look at where it crosses. I was a captain for 27 years. I've been in Port aux Basques quite a few times, and I know what is happening to the weather. I agree with the fellow who said that they're getting 200-kilometre winds there. Yes, we're getting higher winds, too, but I'm calling them sustained winds at 110 and 120 kilometres.

On the lower north shore, for the fishery products that we get, we don't have a sale for them right now, because it costs us too much to send it out by ship. With trucking, we could bring it in.

It would be an economic boom for the lower north shore in tourism alone. We have thousands of lakes that have never felt a hook and have never seen a hook. We don't have access to our own territory.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much, Mayor. I appreciate your comments and your commitment.

Mr. Iacono.

[Angelo Iacono, Liberal, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Please note that I will be sharing my speaking time with my colleague, Ms. Gill.

Mr. Jones, according to what I understood, infrastructure issues constitute a daily battle for you, and you have a lot of internal challenges.

What is the most used means of transport for merchandise, such as fish?

[Randy Jones]

The road network, certainly. Otherwise, the producers or processing plants are not on a level playing field with the ones in the rest of the country.

We have to pay to move our goods between Harrington, La Tabatière or other villages along the coast and Rimouski. Then they are transported by trucks.

[Angelo Iacono, Liberal, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Forgive me for interrupting you, but I don't have much speaking time.

When you talk about roads, are you talking about provincial or federal roads?

[Randy Jones]

For our part, we want route 138, which is already a national road up to Sept-Îles, to become national up to Blanc-Sablon. The extension has been done up to Kegaska, and there is another leg of about 250 kilometres to complete. That investment would mean the country would be covered. Quebec's Lower North Shore is in a way the last frontier.

In 1989, I attended a conference on socioeconomic issues in Baie-Comeau. At that conference, the mayor at the time said that the people of Newfoundland had begun to build a road between Red Bay and Labrador City. Everyone started to laugh, and people said that would never happen. But it's a reality now.

[Angelo Iacono, Liberal, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Jones.

I will yield the floor to my colleague.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Iacono, for giving me some speaking time.

I thank all of the witnesses for being here with us.

Hello, Mr. Jones. Thank you for taking part in this meeting. We have spoken before on several occasions. I also thank you for playing the role of ambassador for the Lower North Shore. I wanted to say that today because it's historic for us and for the Lower North Shore, which is located in my riding. It's a very vast area. It covers 350,000 square kilometres and includes 400 kilometres of coast. I wanted to provide some context.

Within those 400 coastal kilometres, there are people who refer to themselves as “coasters”. There are also two Innu nations who live there, the Unamen Shipu and Pakua Shipu nations. We talked about people who live in remote areas, but on top of everything, these people are cut off from the continent. We do say “continent” back home, both in English or French, and Innu. We talked about the consequences of climate change. I think that Mr. Jones would agree with me that all of the consequences, be they economic, social or cultural, are immense. We're talking about survival. We aren't just talking about development, which is the key to survival.

I'm going to open a sidebar to my colleague Mr. Aubin's intervention; he spoke about climate change and its repercussions on the development of infrastructure. We can't consider development in remote areas like this in the same way as we look at development in urban areas. It is different.

Mr. Jones, you are the ambassador for the Lower North Shore, Gros-Mecatina and La Tabatière. I would like you to give us an idea of what development means in the region of the Long Range mountains, notably what is called “ the buckle”, not only from the economic perspective, but also the social one.

When you say that the population is cut off from the continent, that does not only mean that the food isn't fresh, but that sometimes there simply isn't any. It happens that people can't get out when they are sick and deprived of all services. The young people, who don't have access to education, are leaving.

I would like you to describe the situation on the Lower North Shore further, and what it means. We aren't making additional requests; we don't even have basic infrastructure. You will agree with me, since you tried to mention it several times, that the Government of Quebec, the people of the North Shore, as well as all of the elected representatives, federal and provincial, and the Innu and Naskapi chiefs, are favourable to the project and are themselves applying the necessary pressure to see it go forward.

I'm sorry I spoke so long. Could you, for the people who are present here, give us the real picture of the situation on the Lower North Shore?

[Randy Jones]

Just to give you an idea, I will give you an example. By air, there are 30 kilometres between La Tabatière and Tête-à-la-Baleine, and the airfare is $650. Given the income levels of the population in that region, no one can afford that. We are prisoners in our own villages. People go to work on the roads everywhere in Canada. They do it for the first two or three years, but it costs too much to come back home. So those people wind up asking their families to join them. For our part, we want to stop that hemorrhage.

I'll give you another example. I speak French, but 80% of the people in my village are anglophones. It's not a choice; in a way, it's due to a geographical error. Tête-à-la-Baleine is the only really francophone village on the Lower North Shore. When we began to exert pressure to have the road built between La Tabatière and Tête-à-la-Baleine, my municipal council agreed with that. Indeed, 35 kilometres is not too long a distance to cover by bus. It could allow our young people to go and study in French. I don't know quite how to explain the feeling to you...

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

I'm sorry to have to interrupt, but it's gone over the allocated time.

Mr. Liepert.

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

Good afternoon, and thank you to all of you for being here.

First of all, I'd like to preface my comments by saying that I represent a riding in Calgary, Alberta, and so my in-depth knowledge of the east coast is quite limited.

Ironically enough, while we're sitting here, across town in front of the Senate, the Minister of Transport is before the Senate trying to defend Bill C-48. To those of you who are not familiar with Bill C-48, this is the bill the Prime Minister brought before the House of Commons with no scientific data to back up this tanker ban on the west coast. It was something the Prime Minister decided to do while he was flying over British Columbia. It landlocks provinces like Alberta and Saskatchewan from using the transportation corridor of Canada to export our goods.

You've all had lots of experience dealing with tankers coming in and out of your ports on the east coast. What experience, if any, have you had with spillage or other incidents? What sort of view do you have whereby we have a government that allows tanker traffic on our east coast but won't allow it on the west coast, because, in the words of our Prime Minister, it is a pristine coast? That sort of tells me it is a little more pristine and important to preserve than the east coast.

Do any of you have any comments relative to how safe it is based on your experience of having tankers coming in and out of your ports?

[Randy Jones]

I don't know if the west coast is all pristine. We are pristine, and I don't see a problem with tankers. The rules and regulations have to be such that before they get to the ports, we make sure that the captains and crew are not drunk. When you [Inaudible—Editor] and the spillage that we've had, that's exactly what would have happened and we have to stop that.

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

I take that point. Do you have any other comments?

[Randy Jones]

To me, if the oil that comes out of Alberta and Saskatchewan is good to burn, why not have access across the range to sell the product?

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

I'm going to stop you there, sir, because I do want to ask Mr. Davis a question.

Mr. Davis, you mentioned briefly about having access to Alberta oil on the east coast. Would you elaborate a little on the necessity of having a pipeline to the east coast? How would that, despite the resistance of the two parties to my left here on having a pipeline go through Quebec, help climate change by not having all of these foreign tankers coming into you ports?

[Glenn Davis]

I would certainly agree with you that eastern Canada, Atlantic Canada, needs access to domestic supplies of oil and gas. Our thought is that it would be a boon to the economy. It would avoid the unsafe and environmentally insensitive transport by railcars.

Our understanding, though, is that tanker traffic into the Port of Saint John would probably reverse and increase, but our experience in Atlantic Canada has been that the shippers have been entirely responsible. We have a very sensitive whale population in the Bay of Fundy. Shippers have been very active in monitoring, tracking and avoiding whales. They are creating shipping channels that won't endanger the local wildlife. There are ways that the environment and the economy can coexist, and certainly, the local enterprises that are involved in energy development are already active in those areas.

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

Thank you, sir. I have one last question and I only have about a minute to go. I wanted to just get Mr. Spencer on the record.

You talked about the increased cost, the head tax. You didn't mention the carbon tax, but I got the sense that you really wanted to make a comment to Ms. Hutchings on the environmental reasons for this head tax.

[John Spencer]

No, not really. I just feel it's unjustified that I have to pay an extra 18% to get on a ship to go across 96 miles. That to me is insulting as a Canadian. It's not a message to Ms. Hutchings. We've had the discussions and when I have to pay that and plus pay for my fuel at 18% I'm insulted.

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

Then you would add the carbon tax on top of that. Is that correct?

Mr. Lane, do you want to make any comment on that?