Transport Committee on Nov. 17th, 2016

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

To all of our officials, thank you very much for finding the time to be here with us today. We will try to get through as quickly as possible something as important as our supplementary estimates.

I am going to open up the floor with Mr. Berthold.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

First of all, Mr. Keenan, I would like to congratulate you on your appointment. It will be a pleasure to work with you, I hope, when you answer our committee's questions in the coming months.

Allow me to go back to something the minister said earlier that surprised me. He challenged my colleague to find allusions in his speech to the privatization of airports and ports. But on October 20, 2016, The Globe and Mail stated fairly clearly that the Liberal government had asked Credit Suisse to study the advantages of potentially privatizing airports. If the Minister of Transport himself does not know that the government is requesting such a study, I think we should be very concerned about how the Liberal government approached this.

Mr. Keenan, as part of the study on the Navigation Protection Act, I was also quite stunned to hear that you had encouraged people to testify before the committee, including First Nations members. You sent them a letter to that effect, which in a sense confirms what the opposition said, that the results of this study were already determined in the minister's mandate letter.

Could you tell me what prompted you to undertake this approach with the committee, which is independent from the government in terms of its operation and direction?

Could you also send us a copy of any consultations, initiatives and letters that were sent to people as part of the study on the Navigation Protection Act?

[Michael Keenan]

Thank you for the question.

I don't think I have anything to add to the minister's remarks on privatizing ports and airports. I think he answered that question well.

You also asked a question about the study on the Navigation Protection Act.

I would say on that matter that the minister and the department are very much looking forward to the results of the work of this committee. As I think the minister indicated, we are looking for that to be very helpful in guiding our further work on that.

I can underline that there was no intention, in any correspondence on the part of the minister or the department, to direct the work of the committee. We have had some correspondence with aboriginal groups that have come to us seeking our permission or approval to testify at the committee, and we have simply redirected them to the clerk. In our view, we have no role in determining who testifies at the committee.

In the supplementary estimates, some of the funds that you see in terms of reviewing the Navigable Waters Protection Act are simply to maintain an avenue of dialogue and consultation with Canadians on that. A significant portion of them is to provide participant funding to indigenous groups.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Keenan, it is—

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Mr. Berthold, I don't want to interrupt either, but if you are quoting the minister from a document, would you please supply the document to the clerk?

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

I will.

Mr. Keenan, I have here a copy of a letter—and I will indeed give it to the committee—that you sent to Jess Housty, Lisa Fong and Marilyn Slett. In it, you write:

Having said that, we will contact the committee to encourage it to hear what the Coastal First Nations and the Heiltsuk First Nation have to say.

This goes beyond simply sending a letter to some people to ask them to appear before the committee. You say in the letter that you will encourage the committee to hear what they have to say.

I would like to know what led you to take this action. Did you share this correspondence with the committee?

[Michael Keenan]

Yes, it's true; I remember writing that email. I'm sorry, but I didn't mean to give the impression that I was trying to direct the committee's work.

I was concerned that Marilyn Slett, who is the Chief of the Heiltsuk Nation in Bella Bella, had difficulty in distinguishing the minister's role from that of the committee. I was trying to explain to her that it was not the minister's responsibility to choose this committee's witnesses.

I apologize if my words created a sense that I was trying to direct the committee. My attempt was to correct and clarify for Chief Slett that it is not the authority of the Department of Transport to determine who the committee hears as witnesses. I was trying to redirect the chief to the clerk. I think I did say inciter or encourage. It was meant to affirm the idea that they would be, in our view, a good witness, but there was no attempt to direct the work of the committee.

I should add, if I could, Madam Chair, that the other matter that was raised was that the chief is very stressed. There was a very bad accident in her community. There's been a terrible impact on her community. We were trying to reassure the chief as much as possible as she navigates a very difficult situation. We clarified that the support for participant funding that they had made to the department was still under review.

Our belief is that the participant funding we are reviewing and granting to indigenous groups will help them provide their perspective on this matter of the review of the law, perhaps to the benefit of their submissions to the committee, or to the benefit of their submissions to the Government of Canada. We're leaving it open to them to choose how they use that participant funding.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much, Mr. Keenan.

Because of our short time, we have speaking notes from several of our folks at the table. Please reference them after the meeting or through the meeting, as time prevails.

Mr. Aubin.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you for being here.

My first question is for the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport.

I spoke with Mr. Garneau a little earlier about rail transportation and airports. Unfortunately, I didn't have enough time and couldn't discuss ports. There is a trend towards privatization. I read in The Globe and Mail that the Liberal government had hired Morgan Stanley to study privatizing 18 ports. I was wondering two things.

First of all, is the list of these 18 ports public? Could you both give some examples and briefly tell us what type of port is being considered for privatization and what type is not? Could you also put the Trois-Rivières port in either of these categories?

[Kate Young, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Certainly I reiterate what the minister said, that privatizing airports or ports is not something that has been discussed. Of course, it's a big topic, but it's not something that I am privy to any information on.

[Michael Keenan]

Madam Chair, I might add that I believe the 18 ports that are referred to would represent the 18 ports that are constituted as port authorities, with letters patent signed by the Minister of Transport. Trois-Rivières would be one of those 18.

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

I'll come back to rail transportation. As the minister said a little earlier, $3.3 million over three years was spent to thoroughly assess VIA Rail's high frequency rail project. Credit 1b requests an additional authorization of $886,764.

Could you tell us specifically what these funds would be used for in the project assessment process? What has been added, what is new compared to the previous budget forecast?

[Michael Keenan]

As the minister said, the Government of Canada, whether the Department of Finance or the Department of Transport, must do its homework when it comes to investments in the high frequency rail project.

The $888,000 that is in the supplementary estimates (B) is for one of three years of funding that was allocated in budget 2016. We are using that for essentially due diligence, working towards investment grade analysis of the cost projections, of the projections of passengers, to have a solid financial analysis as quickly as possible to support the government's final decision of whether or not to invest in the high-frequency rail proposal by VIA Rail.

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

Thank you.

I have another question for the parliamentary secretary, in the spirit of transparency.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Mr. Aubin, you can have a short question.

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

I wanted to know which partners the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Transport, among others, had discussed the proposed infrastructure bank with. There was BlackRock. Could this list of partners be made public as well?

[Michael Keenan]

The partners of the proposed infrastructure bank have not been identified because the government is in the process of developing the details for setting it up.

The Minister of Finance announced the bank in the fall update. The Government of Canada is working, as part of its broad strategy, to renew Canada's infrastructure in developing the plans for exactly how the bank would operate. Those will be forthcoming.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much, Mr. Keenan.

Mr. Rayes.

[Alain Rayes, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would like to thank everyone who is here this morning to answer our questions.

My questions are for Ms. Boileau, the assistant deputy minister, who, if I'm not mistaken, handles infrastructure-related finance issues.

On the third page of the speaking notes you sent to us, you say, “The funds that we are requesting be transferred are from the municipal rural infrastructure fund...”

Could you expand on that? Are these funds that have not been used in the municipalities and that you are asking be recovered for other projects?

[Darlene Boileau, Assistant Deputy Minister, Corporate Services, and Chief Financial Officer, Infrastructure Canada]

What you are referring to is related to credit 10b of the supplementary estimates (B). The amount of money for contribution adjustments will be taken from the municipal rural infrastructure fund and the border infrastructure fund. These programs ended in 2014, and these funds are now available to be transferred to the federal gas tax fund.

[Alain Rayes, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

So these were funds that the municipalities had access to. We know that the municipalities have many requests. Are you taking these funds to respond to other Infrastructure Canada requests or are they now going to be used for municipal projects?

[Darlene Boileau]

These funds will be returned to the municipalities, since they will be paid into the federal gas tax fund. These funds will be redistributed to municipalities that didn't have access to this fund while the program existed. The program began in 2004 and ended in 2014. Funds that were not used or that were returned because the projects cost less than expected will be transferred back to the municipalities.

[Alain Rayes, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Thank you.

We have talked a lot about the new infrastructure bank of the Minister of Finance or the Minister of Infrastructure and Communities. Both say great things about it.

According to the information we've received, the federal contribution of $15 billion to funding this $35 billion bank would come from a fund originally budgeted for municipalities. Is that how we should understand it?

[Darlene Boileau]

The $15 billion we are referring to is part of the government's infrastructure investment platform. This is fresh money that was announced in the 2016 budget. As the Deputy Minister of Transport Canada noted, this is a work in progress and will continue.

[Alain Rayes, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

As I understand it, the $15 billion for infrastructure announced in the budget is being transferred to the infrastructure bank, which is to be used for infrastructure projects. In fact, these funds already existed and are not new funds that were added to the fiscal update. They are from Infrastructure Canada's 2016 budget.