Evidence of meeting #42 for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was andrishak.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:40 p.m.
NDP
Pierre Nantel NDP Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC
Mr. Andrishak, is there someone in Ottawa it would be possible to speak to concerning the work that you do?
While surfing on Google, I saw that you had received yet another prize from an investment firm.
12:40 p.m.
Director, IBI Group Inc.
I'm old enough to remember the Ministry of State for Urban Affairs. It seemed to me that this has been lacking for the last 40 years. It seems to me that what we're talking about here, the integration of transit and environmental design, can't be looked at separately. They're inextricably linked. When the last government was forming, I was excited, thinking that this kind of ministry would somehow appear. This is a big topic. It can't be handled in small pieces.
12:40 p.m.
NDP
Pierre Nantel NDP Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC
In the case of a city like Mississauga, which goes to the trouble of connecting all of its transportation services, parks and so on, the use of these wireless systems allows people to use public transit, for instance, without having to worry.
On this, I could give you the example of my employee; this morning he wrote to me to inform me that he was unable to attend an event because his car had broken down. He took the bus from where he lives in Montreal to go to a metro station. However, when he transferred, he had to pay a second time. You can just imagine what an automobile driver who has to wait for the bus in the cold, and has to pay a second time when he transfers, was feeling. Is that not the perfect formula to make people detest public transit?
However, during my last trip to Winnipeg, I was able to coordinate my travel from the station to the airport. The schedules that were provided were very precise, and I appreciated that very much.
Do you have the impression in Mississauga that we can do more, environmentally-speaking, in the context of the smart city? There is an immediate ecological footprint. Even if your buses all used diesel fuel, there would be an increase in the number of passengers, and a drop in greenhouse gases in Mississauga.
12:40 p.m.
Director of Information Technology and Chief Information Officer, City of Mississauga
It's an excellent question. This is a significant challenge in the greater Toronto area, because you have such a large population base. There is a movement to go to an integrated transit system within the GTA, but it's in its early stages. There's the Metrolinx rollout of Presto and integration across transit systems. We have a major investment in north-south light rail transit in the Hurontario corridor of 26 new kilometres of light rail transit. We're looking at having shovels in the ground in 2018. It's a great initiative. That will certainly change traffic patterns and the use of transit, but these are long-term investments.
12:40 p.m.
Liberal
12:40 p.m.
Liberal
Angelo Iacono Liberal Alfred-Pellan, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I am going to share my time with my colleague, Mr. Sikand.
I thank the witnesses for having come to talk to us about smart cities. I am from the third largest city in Quebec, the city of Laval. I would like to see my city become as “smart” as the others one day.
Mr. Andrishak, in light of your expertise, what advice would you have to give us in order to have more and more cities in the country become smart cities? How can the Government of Canada help them to head in that direction?
12:45 p.m.
Director, IBI Group Inc.
[Technical difficulty—Editor] for a symposium to continue what we're doing here today, which is getting together and talking about solving big problems, but the way that you solve big problems, I think, is to incrementalize them and start out with smaller ideas.
One thing I will say, to go back to what I suggested at the start, is that automated vehicles are coming. They're going to be here. If we're not on top of that, we're going to have the same situation we had when drones showed up at RadioShack. Everyone thought they were interesting, and then suddenly there were too many, and then we had a problem.
The first thing is to define the problem, and the second thing is to get venues together where people actually talk about how to integrate and build upon these issues.
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
Gagan Sikand Liberal Mississauga—Streetsville, ON
My question is for Mr. Slack.
I remember spending a bit of time in Stockholm circa 2005-2006, and three things really stuck in my mind when I was there. One was that their lights were turning on as I walked. There were motion sensors. They had the side ramps for bicycles, and they actually had free Wi-Fi then.
Moving beyond smart cities to global cities, ultimately, what's the forum in which our cities discuss innovations with other cities in the world, not just within Canada? What are those channels, if there are any?
12:45 p.m.
Director of Information Technology and Chief Information Officer, City of Mississauga
That's a good question.
I actually participate in some global forums. I was in China last September. There were 68 countries in attendance, all presenting on the great cities around the world. Masdar City is a really interesting example of solving very challenging problems, such as trying to lower the outside temperature of a city by 2°. They did that through city-building, through the design of the buildings, the shape, how they cast shadows, and the air flow.
What I take away from that is that when you go to some of these more progressive countries where they're doing greenfield building, smart-city-building, they're able to innovate and build an entire city as a smart city. From that we're able to learn what applies there in our own build form. That's the opportunity when you're looking globally at what's happening out there.
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
Gagan Sikand Liberal Mississauga—Streetsville, ON
Could you please provide some commentary on the federal government's position, or the position we could take going into the future?
12:45 p.m.
Director of Information Technology and Chief Information Officer, City of Mississauga
I think there are two things.
If you're going to invest and you're going to encourage Canada's movement towards a greater smart city movement, you have to get a better handle on what we have today. There are cities across Canada that have great innovation and great smart technology already. Get a handle on that and do an assessment across Canada of the cities. Now you have a baseline. Then you can decide what types of problems you might want to solve, and they will differ. The small communities will differ from the larger communities.
If you have that baseline, two things could happen. You could tell the story of Canada. We have a strong brand as a country, but we don't have a strong technology and innovation brand as a smart city leader. I think that's a huge opportunity, because there are great things happening. Use that information to drive programming around investing in innovation and smart technology across Canada, and get everyone involved.
Collaboration is a great way to kick this thing off. I heard someone talking about a contest as a potential way to kick this off. That would be a great way to initiate it, but there has to be some sustainment, and I think there has to be a story told across the country.
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
Angelo Iacono Liberal Alfred-Pellan, QC
Mr. Slack, what are the impacts of your initiative on the environment, on sustainability, efficiency, and costs?
12:45 p.m.
Director of Information Technology and Chief Information Officer, City of Mississauga
The sustainability is a bit of a challenge when you're looking at programs that have one-time funding. I think that's where partners really need to be put together. Free Wi-Fi is a partnership. We partner with post-secondary and we partner with the private sector too. We're able to use that partnership to put in place an infrastructure to provide free Wi-Fi in all our facilities and also to provide free access for post-secondary institutions to secure Wi-Fi in their facilities—in this case, Sheridan College. The benefit to Sheridan was enough for us to share costs and create a sustaining model going forward.
12:50 p.m.
Liberal
Vance Badawey Liberal Niagara Centre, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I want to preface my comments by stating that I respect the fact that it was asked that we establish a vision. That's in fact what we're doing here with this entire strategy that we're embarking on as of today's meeting, to plan and prepare for investing in the future, which is the new norm, I think, with technology.
The way we're doing business now in our municipalities is the new norm. It's moving forward instead of being reactive. Maybe not Mississauga, but other older municipalities throughout the country have been very reactive in trying to catch up with infrastructure demands. We're trying to be proactive to in fact create plans, strategy, and vision, and to therefore move forward with that dialogue. We'll have questions, yes, but more dialogue. This is not going to be the last time we're going to see each other, by the way.
That said, we also want to recognize at the federal level that it's going to be up to the municipalities to create their community improvement and growth plans. Attached to that is going to be asset management, and then attached to that is going to be the financing of same, to satisfy those recommendations that you're otherwise planning for. Of course, that's the participation we are expected to then enter into with respect to being an enabler for those recommendations and satisfying those recommendations, especially in relation to financing.
I have to say that part of the overall strategy, therefore, is also the funding strategy. It's to ensure that in the future we put in place a sustainable funding program very similar to the gas tax. I'm hoping that a lot of that is going to be recognized as we dialogue, and hopefully we can participate in that at the federal level.
I have to say as well, Madam Chair, when we look at this, that I take the comments from Mr. Andrishak very seriously when it comes to community planning and land use planning, and from you folks as well, especially from the municipal side, when it comes to land use planning, transit, integrated transit, infrastructure investments, asset management and the budgeting of same, and communications, IT, and things of that nature.
That now leads me to my question for all three of you.
When you take into consideration all of the above-mentioned points, who actually takes on the prioritization? Who facilitates it? Who leads this process with respect to prioritization? When applications from one of the partners are being made, most times they're from either a hydro utility, a fibre network—which is usually part of a hydro utility—or a municipality. Who prioritizes the applications that would otherwise come to the federal government or the provincial governments and then takes into consideration the funding for the ultimate plan, the bigger picture? What we often see up here, as I'm sure you do, is that those applications compete against each other locally.
Who prioritizes, especially between municipalities and hydro, for the same municipality? Who prioritizes that, makes the application, and therefore moves forward with satisfying those recommendations under an overall community improvement growth plan?
12:50 p.m.
Director of Information Technology and Chief Information Officer, City of Mississauga
I'll attempt to answer that question.
Prioritization is done at many levels, and it is challenging, but I can give you the example of our private fibre network.
We prioritize with six municipalities at the table. We have created a consortium. We prioritize investment around creating and building fibre. When I build around a fibre, I consider my partners and add dark fibre to that asset for them. That includes hospitals and schools.
You have to think more broadly than, in my case, the City of Mississauga, and you have to think about the city proper. What other agencies are there? There are the conservation authorities, the schools, the hospitals, the police, fire—
12:50 p.m.
Liberal
Vance Badawey Liberal Niagara Centre, ON
Who takes that lead? Who takes the lead with the MUSH sector, with all those different partners? Who takes the lead so that ultimately you create that municipal or area plan? With that is the asset management part of it. Then with that is the actual financing strategy that satisfies the plan. When those applications are coming to the federal government, who facilitates that and therefore eliminates the competition between different agencies?
12:50 p.m.
Director of Information Technology and Chief Information Officer, City of Mississauga
I think ultimately the cities have to facilitate that and work with partners. If you think about a local emergency, in the end the city runs the emergency. I think if you put it within that context, the citizens, the build forum, and the residents look to the city first, regardless of the service they are consuming. It's that first point of contact.
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
Vance Badawey Liberal Niagara Centre, ON
I really want to emphasize that, because as one member of this committee, my desire is to move in that direction; hence the reason I'm very excited about this process. It's to ultimately be proactive, not reactive, and to ensure that as municipalities throughout the country are putting forward their desires with respect to funding, that triple-bottom-line return is evident, which means economy, social, and environment, and to ensure therefore that they're not competing against each other within that process. It's to ensure that this community improvement growth plan is put in place, is disciplined, and is looking ahead to the new norm, and as well that when they're applying, it's based on those priorities that are established by that certain area of the country.
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro
I think Mr. Andrishak has something he wanted to comment on, Vance, if I could interrupt you there.
12:55 p.m.
Director, IBI Group Inc.
My take on this is a bit different. I work sort of half in Canada and half in the U.S., at least until Mr. Trump tells me otherwise, and I find that the big message is with the transit agencies. They have the bigger budgets and they have a finite role. They want to get a line built from north to south, and increasingly they want to influence land use patterns. They want their stations not only to contribute to ridership but actually to become bona fide transit villages where people can walk and bike and shop even if they're not taking transit.
Therefore I find that the transit—