Good morning. On behalf of the 26 New Brunswick-based CEOs that are members of the business council, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to appear before the committee on an issue that is considered one of the council's top three priorities and one that has significant potential for economic development for Quebec and the Maritime region.
The issue we would like to raise with the committee is the urgency in twinning the 41-kilometre stretch of highway between Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha! and Saint-Antonin in the province of Quebec.
Specifically, along with the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and the three major trucking associations from Ontario, Quebec and Atlantic, we are advocating to expedite the twinning of Route 185 and to advance the completion date from 2025 to the fall of 2021.
As the only remaining single-lane section of highway between Halifax and Toronto, Route 185 increases costs between the Atlantic region and the larger central Canadian economy for both carriers and consumers. The improvement in the highway would effectively eliminate a tariff of sorts and an interprovincial trade barrier.
Today, long combination vehicles are forced to stop, decouple and recouple after the 41-kilometre stretch, which makes goods from the Maritimes more expensive to export to other parts of Canada and adds cost to Ontario and Quebec carriers. Carriers use a much lower percentage of long combination vehicles as a result, which also impacts driver shortages and increases carbon emissions.
While the project of twinning Route 185 has been ongoing for many years and progress has been made, if we do not expedite this project, every year that we delay will cost the Atlantic economy roughly $1 billion. Taking six years to complete a 41-kilometre stretch of highway will diminish the economic potential for our region.
ln 2017, the New Brunswick Business Council partnered with Dr. Herb Emery of the University of New Brunswick, along with Kent Fellows of the University of Calgary, who has experience modelling the GDP impacts of transportation infrastructure as a lead researcher for the national corridor research project.
Our intention was to actually quantify—for what we understand to be the first time—the economic impact that this transportation bottleneck creates for goods travelling to western markets from eastern Canada and from Ontario and Quebec to the Atlantic region. Based on information we provided to Dr. Fellows, he assessed that the impact of twinning Route 185 would reduce the delivered cost of traded goods by 1.5% to 2.5%, representing annual GDP gain of $1 billion to $1.78 billion for Canada.
We feel governments and leaders who have so diligently been looking for economic growth opportunities, through the Atlantic growth strategy, would be hard-pressed to find projects and opportunities that could provide this level of return in such a short period of time without any increased funding for this project.
To be clear, we understand that Infrastructure Canada and the Government of Quebec signed an agreement for phase three of this project, the twinning of the final 41 kilometres, in 2018, for over $389 million. As the New Brunswick Business Council, we are advocating for the federal government to play a role with the province to agree to advance the funding, which has already been allocated, to immediately fast-track this critical infrastructure project.
There are other important impacts of twinning Route 185 that must also be considered. For example, there are significant emission reductions that can result from the increased use of long combination vehicles. The use of long combination vehicles would allow companies to address the significant labour issues that also impact industry in the form of significant driver shortages.
lt is important to note that this section of highway is also a concern from a safety perspective. According to the Canadian Trucking Alliance, Route 185 is often cited as one of the most dangerous highways in Canada. As with any single-lane highway that has a high level of passenger and tractor-trailer traffic combined with no alternative routes, there is significant risk to public and driver safety.
ln closing, the New Brunswick Business Council believes this is one project that merits focused attention, has high impact, and requires no increase in funding as a means of improving our export performance for the Atlantic region, Quebec and for our nation as a whole.
Thank you.