Transport Committee on Feb. 16th, 2017

[Bill Hutchison]

I think there are privacy issues as we go along, but they can be managed effectively. Unfortunately, like it is for all new technologies and approaches, there is a downside, and we've seen some of that. Cars have a downside—we kill a lot of people on the highways—and we have to be learning as we go. It's a very important area.

I could answer one other question, though, that was raised earlier. This has to do with what governments could do; do we create a plan or whatever? The U.K. did a marvellous job. They created a smart cities forum to do the planning. It's a public-private forum. There are two cabinet ministers co-chairing it and then there are leaders in all the other sectors too. They came up with a great program, and I think it would fit Canada.

[Angelo Iacono, Liberal, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Hutchison.

With respect to digital technology, what is your read on cyber-attacks? What should we be concerned with? What should the federal government be concerned with? I'll leave those questions to be answered by both of you.

Go ahead, Mr. Miller.

[Kevin Miller]

Broadly speaking, I think that may not be specifically answerable solely by looking at transportation electrification. The questions about ensuring that your infrastructure is resilient to those types of attacks is something that I can of course understand would be a top priority for the federal government.

ChargePoint does work actively with utility partners to ensure the data we leverage meets their stringent standards. It's important to make sure those relationships and those actors are secure in the way the data is handled. We currently do that in an efficient manner that meets those utility needs.

[Angelo Iacono, Liberal, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Miller.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much. I'm afraid your time is up.

Mr. Badawey.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I have to start my comments by welcoming Ms. Hamm.

Ms. Hamm, I'm the former mayor of the City of Port Colborne. For almost two decades now, we've enjoyed a great relationship with the City of Magog. Welcome. It's great to have you on board.

I have a quick question, Ms. Hamm, with respect to your population. You're a city of about 26,000 people, about 25,300, and you cover an area of about 144 square kilometres in comparison to a community such as Surrey, which has about 470,000 people and covers about 316 square kilometres.

Here's where I'm going with this. In terms of a national infrastructure and/or smart city strategy, as was discussed earlier, where do you see a lot of your priorities fitting in an overall strategy?

Ms. Hamm.

[Vicki-May Hamm]

Sorry, but as a result of technical problems, I didn't completely understand your question.

I believe you asked me how our actions could fit into a national strategy?

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

That's correct.

[Vicki-May Hamm]

If I understood the question, the efforts being made at all levels and the consistency being demonstrated ensure that this could fit into a national strategy.

Alone, at home, I don't have the power. The Union des municipalités du Québec is pushing the issue. Both the provincial government and federal government have showed openness. There's a desire to work toward this goal.

I hope I understood your question. I'm sorry, but I'm missing portions as a result of the telephone line.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

What I'm getting at is that there are obviously cities of small sizes and cities of larger sizes throughout the nation that are looking at putting a national strategy together, with the federal government becoming an enabler for all of them to then be a part of or take advantage of a strategy. How can a smaller city, such as Magog, put in place priorities to be included in an overall strategy?

[Vicki-May Hamm]

This relates to your previous question on major cities. That's what I understood.

For example, when we attend the annual meetings of the Fédération québécoise des municipalités, which includes the smallest municipalities, the first thing we're asked about is the digital infrastructure.

In the national strategy, we need to start by ensuring that all people have access to this essential service. It's fundamental. Afterward, the cities can launch their own initiatives. The initiatives will be different depending on whether it's Magog, the village of Austin, Quebec City or Montreal. However, all the initiatives will be based on a national strategy, an infrastructure and a coverage provided to everyone.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Hutchison, I know that you've been involved in a lot of different municipalities throughout the nation. In particular, one of those that I have taken an interest in discussing with one of my colleagues in the House, former mayor Dianne Watts, is Surrey. She boasts a lot about how much they've done with respect to establishing a smart city in her neck of the woods. I've read with interest about a lot of what they've accomplished. To accomplish that across the nation would be a heavy advantage for many cities, especially those that are trying to catch up with respect to their infrastructure.

Although municipalities know what their priorities are, can you comment on how we get there? As a federal government and in becoming an enabler, what are our next steps?

[Bill Hutchison]

Who are you asking?

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

You.

[Bill Hutchison]

Oh good. Thank you.

Let me just say, as Member Watts would know, that Surrey is a member of i-Canada, and so is Edmonton—it just became one of the top seven—but there are also west Parry Sound and all kinds of small communities. My point is that the federal government shouldn't try to be too prescriptive. In other words, don't try to develop “the federal strategy”. I hate to keep referring to other governments, because policy people like to do their own thing, and I know that.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

That's fair enough.

[Bill Hutchison]

Don't be prescriptive. Create a national thing, fund cities—small cities and big ones—and have competitions. They will decide what they need. Small cities try to hold on to their young people so that they don't go to Surrey and big cities. That's the difference. Big cities have other social issues and that sort of thing, but there are strategies for them all.

With regard to west Parry Sound, by the way, prior to the last election, number one on the hit parade for the next council and the next mayor was that they wanted their smart city strategy. This was after they had been doing their planning.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

One of the things I notice is that you're right when you say that municipalities have different priorities. It could be local and high-value jobs, balancing the tax base, economic diversification, resiliency, etc. There's no doubt that it would have to be funnelled up to the federal strategy. We get that.

For my last question, earlier you mentioned $15 billion a year in savings after an investment of $60 billion. Would you have some backup on that?

[Bill Hutchison]

Yes, and not only from me. Quite a number of others have been doing very detailed studies on it. I did just that one example about Sweden, but we could follow up and get you some examples.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

That would be wonderful. If you can pass it on to the committee, we'd truly appreciate that.

[Bill Hutchison]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Block.

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

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I want to say how interesting this study has been. I'm a member who represents a rural riding in Saskatchewan. It's roughly half the size of the province of Nova Scotia and has approximately 66 communities in it, with the largest cities having around 11,000 people. Those cities are very close to the largest city in the province, that being Saskatoon. Nonetheless, I recognize that there cannot be a one-size-fits-all approach when developing a smart cities strategy.

There's one thing that I think was mentioned today and that I want to pick up on. Mr. Miller, I think you mentioned it. I don't know if you spoke to it too much, but it was about the whole notion of the sharing economy. I guess part of a smart city concept is the better usage of assets like parking, vehicles, accommodation, and other things. I'm wondering what role, if any, there is in the development of a smart city concept for the sharing economy.

[Kevin Miller]

That's a great question.

I think there is a central argument to be made to include shared-value investments. The technologies around transportation electrification used to be disparate, but now they're starting to come closer together. There used to be different charging standards for buses than there were for light-duty vehicles. At the end of last year, we saw buses starting to use the same ones, so you can start to envision charging hubs.

For the record, I think we have at least four charging spots in Saskatchewan in our network.

We have the opportunity to create charging hubs that can charge municipal school bus fleets or public bus fleets overnight and then open those up to ride-sharing or ride-hailing fleets during the day, and to local delivery trucks for medium- and heavy-duty use. You can start to see that making an investment in one area doesn't have to serve just that one vertical anymore. There is a lot more access to use that same infrastructure.

By leveraging smart and connected stations, you can create different access and privacy policies to make sure that only the public fleet is accessing it during certain times to make sure it's a secure facility, but then you can open it up at other times to allow for sharing-economy usage.

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

I have one question on top of that.

In terms of the regulating of the sharing economy, is there too much regulating happening or not enough? Where do you see that fitting with the sharing economy?