Transport Committee on Feb. 7th, 2017

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

That's a great point.

[Joachim G. Taiber]

I wanted to point out that if we go down the road of more electrification, we basically have a decline in the revenue from the gas tax, so that needs to be considered. What I know from the U.S. and other countries is that they are discussing a road usage tax, which is a different concept. You could also consider something like a connectivity tax. There are alternative ways in the future of connected, automated, and zero-emission driving. You have to find those revenue sources because these technologies require an infrastructure that needs to be funded.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

That's a great point, as well. As municipalities right now are going through their budget processes, they're grappling with their infrastructure deficit with respect to traditional roads, water, waste water, etc., keeping up from the past but as well—as you correctly mentioned—putting in place new infrastructure that can make up for a lot of that deficit.

[Joachim G. Taiber]

Yes.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

I leaned over to Ken earlier and said that to some extent we already have driverless vehicles. They're called public transit.

[Joachim G. Taiber]

Yes.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Therefore, how do we, through strategy, encourage more usage of that public transit?

[Joachim G. Taiber]

In the U.S., for example, with the highway infrastructure fund, rules are currently being changed. To my knowledge, they are investing not only in the pavement but also in the sensors. If the government invests in sensor networks and there are private stakeholders that are utilizing them, that could be another revenue source.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Do you find the federal government's role is simply facilitating between the different levels of government, such as the provinces, which in fact are really municipalities?

[Joachim G. Taiber]

Yes.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Then, of course, their partners at the municipal sector, which is more localized——and I'm just playing this out—would be utilizing the process of their established strategies: community improvement plans, growth plans, and infrastructure plans. From there, as well, there is the opportunity to then create sustainable funding sources. Also, I think what has to be recognized is the discipline of assets, so encouraging asset management plans, which quite frankly are financed for more sustainability.

[Joachim G. Taiber]

Also, most likely you need to balance this out, because there are those provinces that have more infrastructure and fewer people. That needs to somehow be compensated, so I assume the federal government has to come up with a plan on how to balance this.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Now, Mr. Kirk—

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

I'm sorry, Mr. Badawey. Your time is up.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Go ahead, Ms. Block.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I am really enjoying this conversation, and I want to thank all of you for being here.

I too really appreciated Mr. Hardie's questions. I think they demonstrate the much larger picture that we're looking at when we begin to talk about smart communities.

Mr. Taiber, you ended your comments—and in fact we have the slide still in front of us—with the recommendation that the federal government develop a national transportation innovation program.

Following your presentation, Mr. Kirk, you referenced a couple of white papers you've written. The first one you mentioned was approximately a year ago. You began to state that it contained 30 recommendations, many of which would probably be better placed with the provincial governments. That's what I thought you were about to say.

I want to perhaps follow up on what Mr. Badawey has highlighted in terms of respecting the various orders of government that provide leadership to communities and that have the authority to make decisions. He highlighted many of the tools municipal governments have.

When we look at the development of a national strategy—and you focused on an international transportation network—I'm wondering how we bring this back to what needs to happen among municipalities, provincial governments, and the federal government. Where do we start?

[Barrie Kirk]

One of the most honest conversations I had a while back was with one of the municipalities in the GTA. They acknowledged that they had trouble getting their arms around the whole issue of self-driving cars and the impact on their cities. It's huge. It's multi-faceted. One of the things I find exciting is that it's going to affect virtually every aspect of our life—very literally.

I look back to the 20th century. It was 100 years ago today that Model T Fords were coming off the production line. We know by looking back how much cars changed lives in the 20th century—individual lives, the look and feel of our cities, the country, and the entire world. This is an exciting time for us because we have an opportunity now to witness cars 2.0. It's going to change everything all over again, with equal magnitude.

Very quickly, a while back, we did a project for the City of Toronto. I'll tell you a secret. Well, it's not really a secret; they know this. Before we started work, I thought that the biggest city in the country would have the most inertia. I was dead wrong.

The City of Toronto is inquisitive. They know that they have the opportunity to completely redefine the city of Toronto over the next 25 years. They are asking a lot of good questions. They don't have the answers yet, but they have established a city-wide committee to look at the impact of AVs, not only on transit and transportation but revenue, policy, zoning, and all the other parts of city government.

This is going to change everything. To try to get our arms around this in one hour is impossible, to be blunt. It's going to have a huge impact. I think we need to at least put the institutions in place, as my colleague was saying, to start to address this and have the conversations at all those different levels of government.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you.

[Joachim G. Taiber]

I want to comment here that I think you need to consider two elements. One is the competitive element between municipalities, and then the enabling one. Certain technologies should be coming to all the municipalities, and then others want to be quicker. These two streams have to be considered.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

I think with the fact that you have very large urban centres and small urban centres, some cities feel they have been very innovative by putting bike lanes in their city to address a need that their constituents have raised. I can appreciate that.

I am going to give the rest of my time to my colleague.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

You have a minute and 10 seconds.

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

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

My thanks to the witnesses for being here with us to answer our questions.

We have been talking just now about smart cities. I used to be the mayor of a small municipality of 25,000 people. Everything that you've been describing from the beginning I think applies only to big cities in terms of transportation and new ways of helping people get around large cities. How can a small municipality turn into a smart city? How could it take the lead and try to find its place within the global competition of smart cities?

Mr. Taiber, Mr. Kirk, please answer quickly.

[Joachim G. Taiber]

Yes.

[Barrie Kirk]

Thank you. Again, that's an excellent question.

Small towns will find a real benefit in intelligent mobility. A friend of mine has a mother who lives in Arnprior. As many of you know, it is a small town, 100 kilometres to 150 kilometres from here. There's no bus service. My friend's mother is slightly handicapped. She's in her eighties and can't afford taxis, so she's really limited in mobility.

If we look ahead a few years to having low-cost driverless taxis, that will be a good alternative to having public transportation in a small community like Arnprior. It will benefit the handicapped, seniors, and other people in small communities where there is no bus service at the moment.