Transport Committee on May 14th, 2019

[Jim Lane]

There is no carbon tax as such. I'm wondering about the pipeline like you said, and I would question if you could put a safe pipeline down through would that not give the Canadians on the east coast better access to oil at probably a cheaper price?

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

Absolutely.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you, all, very much.

We go to Mr. Badawey.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Actually that province has a plan for carbon-related pricing. They don't see those increases like Alberta and Ontario do because of the fact that the provinces aren't participating. That's a big difference.

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

Move your motion.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Madam Chair, I have to say that I do to some extent have to sympathize with your comments about the wind, Mr. Spencer. I've been in your neck of the woods on a few occasions in Port aux Basques and Isle aux Morts, Devil's Isle area. It is quite windy. In February you can't even see your hand in front of you with the snow and the wind.

Actually, I've watched the ferries go in and out while being at the Port Club with some friends. You do have a unique challenge there, especially as it relates to climate change. Our intent is to give that carbon-related pricing back to you to therefore invest in a lot of those carbon-related challenges that you're experiencing versus default onto the property taxpayer or the waste-water ratepayer.

With that, I'll turn to my question. On transportation strategies both locally and provincially, have you established transportation-related strategies at the local level? Are you working with your neighbours provincially to also recognize and establish those strategies?

Mr. Greer, I'm coming to you next just as a head's-up so you can prepare for it.

Locally and provincially, have you established those transportation-related strategies?

[John Spencer]

We filed an application with the federal government under the national trade corridors fund for an expression of interest submission to have the major obstacle in our harbour, Vardys Island, removed. Unfortunately, our application was turned down. It was turned down because we didn't have a Crown corporation partner when actually our co-partner in that was Marine Atlantic Inc. We're going to continue to work with the federal government because we see a real need under the infrastructure money to get that island removed to improve the number of sailings we have.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Spencer.

Now I'll go to the Atlantic Chamber of Commerce, and Mr. Davis, as well as Mr. Greer. I'll start off with Mr. Davis.

Has your organization tried to facilitate that transportation strategy for Atlantic Canada?

Mr. Greer, I will be coming to you to ask the same question nationally.

Mr. Davis.

[Glenn Davis]

I'm working with commerce. I'm not aware in the area of transportation strategy. I know that the Council of Atlantic Premiers, which has existed somewhere in the neighbourhood of 50 years, has worked closely with the departments of transportation to achieve harmonization of things such as the over dimensional weights and loads and other one-off aspects of improving the efficiency of transportation in Atlantic Canada.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Greer.

[Ryan Greer]

The chambers of commerce across the country have worked with various regional organizations that are looking at specific gateways and corridors. Obviously, there's a lot of work in the Lower Mainland through the Greater Vancouver Gateway Council and others. We participated in that work. One of the things we've actually been asking, which seems to be lacking at the federal and national level right now.... Infrastructure Canada, for all the good work that they do, doesn't have a lot of strategic policy capacity around national needs. It's mostly just strategic national infrastructure needs. Most of the work is about ensuring that lower levels of government satisfy terms and conditions for funding, which is one of the reasons we are so supportive of the NTCF and want to see more funding delivered in that way.

We have commented in the stand-up of the Canada Infrastructure Bank that it could be a way to get some national strategic intelligence on infrastructure needs at a broader level that doesn't currently exist. It doesn't look like the bank is heading in that way, towards things that Infrastructure Australia and others do. We've been asking for the federal government or some national organization to start looking at national infrastructure needs, because right now that's one thing we don't see a lot of in Canada. So what are the 10 or 15 most important infrastructure projects to our—

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

If I may, I'll jump in because I'm trying to save a minute here for Churence.

I think you're all bang on, it's just a matter of bringing it all together. That's what this process is for, establishing logistics strategy. The trade corridor strategy is to do exactly what you're saying: to validate, justify, those infrastructure investments. The challenge that we're having, however, going from coast to coast to coast is trying to put it all together.

As a takeaway for you folks, perhaps we could get a facilitated process primarily by the chambers of commerce, both Atlantic and national, to let us know those needs, and therefore the financing that's going to be invested in those needs. That way we can plug it all into the national strategy and therefore bring forward not only the overall strategy when it comes to transportation and logistics, but also the funding that has to complement it in the future.

[Ryan Greer]

We would be tremendously supportive of co-operating, collaborating in any way possible. I think what's really important is that it needs to be driven by hard evidence. Most federal infrastructure funding today is delivered based on local priorities, and local governments are obviously best equipped to identify them, but a very small sliver is based on the most significant projects in the country, some of which may skew to certain regions of the country more than others. Although an intake process of local needs is important, we need somebody at the very top to identify on an evidence base the most strategic projects we need.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Thank you.

I'm going to pass the rest of my time to Churence.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

You have 20 seconds.

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

Mr. Greer and Mr. Davis, what kind of impact do you think the completion of Route 138 and a fixed link to the island of Newfoundland from Labrador would have on the economy of that entire region and Quebec?

[Ryan Greer]

I don't know what the precise impact would be, and I think some of the other witnesses would have a better idea. As we're hearing, our transportation system is the circulatory system of our economy. Where we have only air access, or we have limited road access, the consequences are severe. Making those connections are critical to unlocking stagnant economic activity.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much. Sorry, Mr. Rogers, but there's not enough time.

Ms. Block, you have three minutes.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you so much for joining us today to those of you who have dialed in and are video conferencing. We really appreciate the testimony we've heard today. Like my colleague, I am from the Prairies. I have visited all the maritime provinces, but I have to admit that I'm not intimately related to some of the challenges you have, which is why it's great to have you here today to tell us about those challenges.

I also want to thank Mr. Rogers for pushing hard on getting us to include this part of our study before this session ends. You have a great advocate there.

Mr. Greer, I appreciate the observations you've made in regard to how improving the fluidity of our transportation systems can have an impact on transportation related to reduced GHG emissions. I also really appreciate the resolution that you spoke to in regard to our short-line railways and would like to get a copy of that. You may have sent it to all of us as members of Parliament, but I would appreciate being reminded of that, either by having you forward that to the committee, or to my office as well.

One thing we have not touched on today is our air transportation systems and how they have an impact on economic development in our various regions. We've been seized with some of the issues within our air industry because we are about to finish our study of the BIA.

Mr. Greer, I know that the Canadian Chamber of Commerce has advocated for competitiveness in the airline industry. I'm wondering if you could tell us quickly what effects an increase in the cost of a consumer's ticket price will have for Canadian competitiveness in this market.

[Ryan Greer]

At the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, we have spent a lot of time over the past several years talking about the challenges with air travel competitiveness. There's generally been a reluctance from the federal government to look at what ticket cost is composed of, what some of the federally imposed costs on air travel prices are and what that means for travel, tourism and people.

We've also been watching the air passenger protection regulations, which are going to add cost to ticket prices. Generally, we've been asking the federal government to take a step back, work with industry and look at what goes into the cost of air travel in Canada, and where we're most and least competitive. We have major routes in Canada that are cross-subsidizing a lot of our rural and northern routes. Those routes are the highway system, the Trans-Canada Highway of the north, in many cases. There are no highways. It's the equivalent to the highway system.

Certainly, we would be strongly supportive of an overall look at what goes into the cost of air travel. Obviously, we're against any proposals to increase the cost of air travel. We're already a high-cost destination. If I'm a European traveller looking at Denver and the Rocky Mountains, cost more than any other thing may drive me to go down south. We've long called for an examination of federally imposed costs on our travel and would be supportive of ways to try to reduce those.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much, Mr. Greer. I'm sorry, Ms. Block, but we're out of time.

Thank you very much, to all of our witnesses. It was an amazingly informative session, with all of these great witnesses. Thank you so very much for your contributions.

Mayor and Councillor, thank you very much for being here. We wish you safe travels back home.

We will suspend for a moment, for the witnesses to leave the table.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

I'm calling the meeting back to order.

Before we get into the finance and proposed amendments, I need to move a request for a supplementary project budget. That's been distributed to you for this study we're currently doing. Are there any comments or questions on the budget? It's $14,715 for this portion of the study.

Mr. Aubin.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I know that this is a negligible amount, but I'd like to know, simply out of curiosity, what the image bank will be used for.

[The Clerk of the Committee, Ms. Marie-France Lafleur]

It's for the cover page of the final report, just in case you want to use a special image.

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

Thank you.