Thank you, Madam Chair.
I note that the supplementary estimates contain $22.7 million in operational funding for the Department of Transport's role in a $254 million horizontal initiative to assess, manage, and remediate federal contaminated sites throughout the country. Originally, municipalities and utility companies, etc., invested quite heavily in the economic strategic gateway sites, which you spoke of, whether they be airports or whether they be ports. With that, a lot of those investments had to do with water, waste water, roads, sidewalks, utilities, hydro, gas, information technology, etc. With that, it also contributed to local economies, their identity, as well as past and future initiatives as they relate to the economy, once again recognizing a lot of them were airports and ports, as you recognized.
Today, a lot of these lands throughout the country.... I have a good-sized chunk right in the middle of one of the cities in my riding, and I'm talking right smack dab in the middle, which makes it a complete eyesore to some extent, albeit in a strategic location.
They did contribute, as I have said, to local identity and economic initiatives. Sitting stagnant, a lot of them sit with existing contaminants of concern, many of which are worse than others. In my neck of the woods, there's a piece of land that Transport Canada currently owns which contains a heavy concentration of arsenic, lead, etc. Once again, it's in the heart of our city, right next to residential areas and parks and areas where a lot of kids play.
My question is for you, ma'am. Does the federal government, Transport Canada in particular, have an asset management plan attached to the contaminated sites? It is an asset to Transport Canada, so I would assume there would be an asset management plan attached to those sites which takes into consideration ongoing risk, return on investment to bring those sites back into productivity some day, especially if the municipalities are asking for that to happen so that they can add it to their economic portfolio.
Finally, I know some of the sites do have site-specific risk assessments attached to them. Those risk assessments do identify the contaminants of concern. With that said, is there a strategy to actually look at those sites to have them remediated, then once again attach themselves to the latter, which is both returns on investment and the ongoing risks that are attached to those sites?