Transport Committee on March 7th, 2016

[Gagan Sikand, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

I have a second question. What changes will Infrastructure Canada implement that are intended to improve the transparency and speed of the approval process for existing infrastructure projects?

[Amarjeet Sohi, Liberal, Edmonton Mill Woods, AB]

One of the things I mentioned is the removal of P3 screening which will streamline some of the processes. We are looking at when and how the announcements are made and how they tie into the readiness of the communities to deliver on those projects. We are also looking at making some changes that will actually reflect the needs of each province. What works for Ontario doesn't work for Saskatchewan. What works for Saskatchewan doesn't work for British Columbia. We can't have a one approach fits all situations.

Those are the things we are exploring. Hopefully, the next time I come to this committee, I'll be able to give you more concrete examples of what we are doing. We are having those consultations at various departmental levels.

Our goal is to ensure that it should not take as much time as it takes now to get projects approved. Once they're approved, we should be actually flowing money to the communities as quickly as possible. How we do that is something that we are discussing.

[Gagan Sikand, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Thank you, Minister, for the answers.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Mr. Arnold.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to thank the minister for being here today and making his time available. I offer my condolences on the loss of your father.

Local governments typically know their local needs the best. It sounds like these decisions are going to need to pass multiple levels of approval, first at the municipal level, and then the provincial level, and now at your level. Is that correct? Maybe you can explain it a little further.

[Amarjeet Sohi, Liberal, Edmonton Mill Woods, AB]

Through you, Madam Chair, the way the current process works is that local communities prioritize what the project is, and they go through their approval process. Then it goes to the provinces, and then it comes to us.

We require additional information. Sometimes it's appropriate information that we need. Sometimes it's duplicate information that we ask for. That is what we are looking at when we talk about streamlining and where we can reduce some of the unnecessary things.

We don't hold projects if they're complete, if they're ready to go, if the funding is in place, and if the criteria is met. My goal is that we will be developing some performance measurements and standards soon in order to measure our performance against those standards.

We want to get the projects approved as quickly as possible, keeping in mind we want to make sure our objectives are met and we're putting money where money should go. The projects should be worthy projects. They should not just be projects that come to us regardless of what outcomes they will achieve.

You are right that in some cases there are multiple layers of screening that are sometimes unnecessary. We are looking at how we can streamline some of those things.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Thank you.

A word change I've picked up on as the budget speech came out was that the focus seems to be away from transportation and on to transit. As a rural MP, and I've spoken with other rural MPs, we're concerned. We want to be sure that some of the transit or transportation needs in other areas of the province outside of our urban centres are of equal focus.

We have some transportation corridors we have been improving upon, but they continue to need improvement because of the cost of building them.

Can you elaborate a little more on how you're going to look at those projects as well?

[Amarjeet Sohi, Liberal, Edmonton Mill Woods, AB]

Thank you for that questions.

Through you, Madam Chair, the new money, the $60 billion, is allocated for three strategic outcomes: public transit, green infrastructure, and social infrastructure.

In the existing money that is available, which is about $13 billion, there are resources available in that funding envelope for transportation projects, including roadway projects. We are looking at the list we get from the provinces. They prioritize. They have the ability to do so. If a province determines they need to put that money toward building a bridge, then they can do that. If they feel that money needs to go toward building their transit system, then they have the ability to do so. We don't determine where the money goes. It's money allocated to the provinces, and they determine what their priorities are.

There is about $13 billion available that can go toward transportation infrastructure based on the needs of the local communities.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

To clarify, is that existing money?

[Amarjeet Sohi, Liberal, Edmonton Mill Woods, AB]

That is the existing building Canada fund that is available now, which was initiated in 2014.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Okay. If I can continue then, is the new funding all going to transit, not transportation?

[Amarjeet Sohi, Liberal, Edmonton Mill Woods, AB]

The $20 billion over 10 years is going to transit, but if you look at the Prime Minister's mandate letter, it asked me to refocus the existing building Canada fund toward transportation and trade corridors.

Having $20 billion available for public transit in the new money makes the existing money available for other transportation needs. If the new money was not available, then different players would have been fighting for that pot of money, that $13 billion, for different needs, such as public transit needs, roadway needs, drainage needs, or recreational facility needs.

What would end up happening is that the additional $60 billion would reduce pressure on the existing $13 billion that we can refocus toward supporting more transportation infrastructure.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Ms. Duncan for three minutes.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you.

I'm happy to see that you are proposing a national housing strategy, which our party has long called for and the FCM has called for. I'm sure you were part of that, Minister.

It would be my understanding that your ministry would take the lead on a national housing strategy, regardless of whether a good part of it would include affordable housing which, as your staff has been trying to explain to me, is under Minister Duclos. Of course it also affects aboriginal communities and northern communities.

Could you tell me whether you are moving forward on your national housing strategy, who you are going to engage in that, what it will include, and how much of that you are going to lead?

[Amarjeet Sohi, Liberal, Edmonton Mill Woods, AB]

Through you, Madam Chair, it's a shared responsibility between my department and Minister Duclos' department. His department is taking the lead in engaging the stakeholders for the design of the national housing strategy. I'm there to support his initiatives. We can provide you with more information on that, the stage they are at, at this time, but it is Mr. Duclos' area that is taking the lead on developing that long-term strategy, as well as the different components to it. They're included in the mandate letter, whether it's supporting co-ops, or restoring the subsidies that were lost, or that will basically be transitioned if they're not restored. It's his department that is taking the lead.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

I would appreciate, Mr. Minister, some kind of follow-up information—

[Amarjeet Sohi, Liberal, Edmonton Mill Woods, AB]

We will.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

—explaining that, because when I look at one-third of your $20 billion for housing, for seniors, shelters and so forth, I presume that would include co-operatives. As you're aware, there are eight co-operatives in my riding. They're very concerned that the agreement on supporting those is disappearing

[Amarjeet Sohi, Liberal, Edmonton Mill Woods, AB]

Yes.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Even though your mandate letter says that you will work on the national housing strategy, do we need to be speaking to a different minister?

[Amarjeet Sohi, Liberal, Edmonton Mill Woods, AB]

We will get back to you on that, because I can't give you the answer. It's a shared responsibility. One thing the Prime Minister expects from all of us as ministers is to work collaboratively and together with each ministry to fulfill the mandate that Canadians have given us. Housing is one of them, and developing a national strategy around housing is a high priority for our government, and is a priority for all Canadians, I would say. You've been advocating that for a long time; I appreciate that. FCM has been doing that as well.

We will get back to you on where we are on that and give you an update as we proceed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Ms. Watts, for six minutes.

[Dianne Lynn Watts, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

Thank you very much.

I want to understand a bit of the process. I know that when the building Canada fund came into being, the consultation process included a steering committee of 33 infrastructure experts, 200 partners, 12 ministerial round tables, 18 written submissions, and the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. That consultation process was undertaken. The federal government supported more than 43,000 projects across Canada. Of these, 688 were green infrastructure projects, and 33 were public transit projects. In the communities component, now under the building Canada fund, over 900 projects were approved, of which 590 are completed and 410 are in process. We were ranked second among the G7 countries for public infrastructure investments.

I know that it's important to keep the whole program going and moving forward, so I'm glad to see there are some significant alignments. I go back to our green infrastructure program, which was waste-water infrastructure and green energy, and I see that under the mandate letter those coincide and some of these things are getting built upon. Is it the intent to redo all of the consultation process with all of the work that's been done, or build on the successes that we've already had?

[Amarjeet Sohi, Liberal, Edmonton Mill Woods, AB]

Through you, Madam Chair, I think some of the references you are making are related to the old building Canada fund. There are too many building Canada funds. One was designed in 2008-09 and then there was another in 2014. Sometimes the public gets confused about which one we are we talking about.

To your question, what we want to do for the existing Canada building fund, which is the new building Canada fund started in 2014, is look at where some of the challenges were. We're not going to go back and do over the whole program. That's not going to serve us, and it doesn't serve the communities. What we want to do is look at where some of the challenges are and remove those challenges. One of them is in P3, and another one, which you identified, is the different layers of analysis that have to be done for projects. The other one was how the rural communities access—