Evidence of meeting #46 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 cities.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Kevin Quigley  Scholarly Director, Dalhousie University, MacEachen Institute for Public Policy and Governance, As an Individual
Cathy Heron  Councillor, City of St. Albert, and Co-Founder, Alberta Smart City Alliance
Sehl Mellouli  Full Professor, Université Laval, Faculty of Business Administration, As an Individual
Kevin Miller  Director of Public Policy, ChargePoint
Vicki-May Hamm  Mayor, Ville de Magog
Bill Hutchison  Co-Founder and Chair, i-Canada

11:40 a.m.

Scholarly Director, Dalhousie University, MacEachen Institute for Public Policy and Governance, As an Individual

Kevin Quigley

It's a great question. I'll do my best to throw in some ideas, sir.

I think that one of the themes that's been running through some of the discussion is the public engagement aspect and how we bring the community along with us.

What concerns me about the public engagement piece, notwithstanding the fact that public engagement sounds great, is that there can be a lot of recreational infrastructure that people would like to see in their communities and, frankly, it can make for popular outcomes for everyone. That's I think what we've seen in some of the infrastructure investments. They've gone towards recreation centres and swimming pools.

Actually, creating recreational infrastructure can draw qualified labour into your communities and make them more pleasant places to live; however, I'm not really sure how well equipped the public is to understand the trade-offs between the pool and the commuter train or the driverless car. Therein lies the rub, I think. We need serious engagement and long-term education in explaining to people what opportunities might exist in the infrastructure that we're trying to propose. In a way, I think the infrastructure comes after that education in making that case.

I'm not sure if that's helpful.

11:40 a.m.

Liberal

Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC

It reminds me of an episode of The Simpsons where they're talked into building a monorail in their town and it proves to be a huge disaster.

Ms. Heron, I have the same question for you. Based on your experience, are you confident that you are making the right infrastructure decisions in stages that are actually building a smart community versus just decorating a Christmas tree?

11:40 a.m.

Councillor, City of St. Albert, and Co-Founder, Alberta Smart City Alliance

Cathy Heron

Yes, so if there's any money, send it to St. Albert.

11:40 a.m.

Voices

Oh, oh!

11:40 a.m.

Councillor, City of St. Albert, and Co-Founder, Alberta Smart City Alliance

Cathy Heron

In the approach for smart cities, I think you need to remember that.... I'll use St. Albert again as an example. We have a brand. We're “The Botanical Arts City”, so the smart city recognition that St. Albert gets is not our brand. We didn't set out to be a smart city. We set out to use smart-city technologies to enable our core values, such as a safe and healthy community, etc. When you're taking on these technologies, they need to be embedded into the thought process of your administration, your council, and your public.

11:45 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro

Thank you very much.

Mr. Badawey.

11:45 a.m.

Liberal

Vance Badawey Liberal Niagara Centre, ON

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I have to ask you, Ms. Heron, how's my former CAO, Mr. Cotterill?

11:45 a.m.

Councillor, City of St. Albert, and Co-Founder, Alberta Smart City Alliance

Cathy Heron

Does your former CAO work for the City of St. Albert?

11:45 a.m.

Liberal

Vance Badawey Liberal Niagara Centre, ON

Yes, he did for a while.

11:45 a.m.

Councillor, City of St. Albert, and Co-Founder, Alberta Smart City Alliance

Cathy Heron

I'm sorry, but I didn't know that.

February 16th, 2017 / 11:45 a.m.

Liberal

Vance Badawey Liberal Niagara Centre, ON

That's okay.

At any rate, I have to preface my comments, Madam Chair, by saying that we're here talking about smart cities and, in my opinion, smart cities go beyond what can be. They deal as well with what is and what was. It's really about ensuring that we deal with that as well.

Going to your comment, Mr. Quigley, it's critical that it begin with engaging our partners: the municipalities, the provinces, and the jurisdictions.

We've heard loud and clear today that collaboration—dismissing the silos—is extremely important. We've heard today about establishing a national strategy that may—or probably will—contain many strategies from individual jurisdictions plugging into a national strategy that then provides a mechanism from the federal and provincial governments to enable individual jurisdictions to move forward with those strategies. We've heard about co-creating and about taking on tech that includes all groups, all demographics. We heard about listening to the citizens, our customers, listening to the people, and listening to our communities.

We're fortunate, quite frankly, in that we have a great many qualified individuals, such as yourselves, who are all on the same page. We're talking from the same song sheet. We're all saying the same thing, including here at the committee, especially those of us who have very similar backgrounds and are coming from our former lives in municipalities as former mayors, councillors, volunteers, partners, and parts of different organizations.

Going beyond what we're all talking about in terms of the same language, what I really want to concentrate on now is next steps. How do we get there? On this side of the table, we really want to park the politics. We want to ensure that we establish a pragmatic agenda that's more of a “team Canada” approach that includes everyone—all parties in the House, all partners such as yourselves—in order to in fact take those next steps. What do you feel those next steps are?

11:45 a.m.

Councillor, City of St. Albert, and Co-Founder, Alberta Smart City Alliance

Cathy Heron

I'll repeat some of what I said in my opening remarks. We really want the Canadian digital strategy to be amended to include smart city stuff. That's broad terminology, “smart city stuff”, but it will harmonize the country, I think, in a focus on smart cities.

In response to the question about whether or not there's ever enough funding, when I said probably not, I think there are opportunities as well for the federal government, provincial governments, and maybe even local to incentivize some of this so that the private industry can have tax breaks, etc., to work with the public sector on developing some of these things. It doesn't always have to be about the dollars. If there is any opportunity for the funding, I think it needs to be dedicated. I don't want to take my gas tax money and direct it towards smart technologies and away from some of the core infrastructure. At the same time, if I'm building core infrastructure, we're really missing an opportunity to not integrate some of the technologies today that will make us more efficient into the future.

11:45 a.m.

Liberal

Vance Badawey Liberal Niagara Centre, ON

Again, we're talking from the same song sheet, and hence my opening comments with respect to dealing with what is—namely, our infrastructure deficit, which is, quite frankly, what the gas tax is primarily dedicated to. All municipalities are dedicating the gas tax to roads, water, waste water, roads, transit, and really trying to catch up in that infrastructure deficit, or what was.

So now, what can be with respect to smart cities? Would you agree that it would take individual jurisdictions, albeit local, regional, even provincial to some extent, to establish a smart city community improvement and/or growth strategy that would also include or be driven by to some extent an asset management plan to ensure that your assets are being looked after—repair, maintenance, and replacement—but also to include the future, as in “vision”? I think that's the key word here. Of course, there are also the infrastructure investments that would satisfy the recommendations of that vision from a dedicated funding source, as you state.

Would you also agree that this would be driven by existing strategies, such as the national transportation strategy, such as smart city or infrastructure strategies, or other strategies that our partners may in fact have; and that this would also be driven by our assets, our location, our constant relationship with the U.S. because of close proximity? Would you also agree that they would drive the overall agenda?

11:45 a.m.

Councillor, City of St. Albert, and Co-Founder, Alberta Smart City Alliance

Cathy Heron

I absolutely would agree with that, yes. There are also some regional and local strategies. If you were rolling out anything new, then you might want to recognize not the ad hoc integration of technologies but a very thought-out and well-pursued strategy in each municipality and/or region.

11:45 a.m.

Liberal

Vance Badawey Liberal Niagara Centre, ON

This would then drive a national strategy.

11:50 a.m.

Councillor, City of St. Albert, and Co-Founder, Alberta Smart City Alliance

Cathy Heron

Absolutely.

11:50 a.m.

Liberal

Vance Badawey Liberal Niagara Centre, ON

Now, do you think your first step may in fact be to include the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, possibly at their next conference here in Ottawa—

11:50 a.m.

Councillor, City of St. Albert, and Co-Founder, Alberta Smart City Alliance

Cathy Heron

I'll be here, yes.

11:50 a.m.

Liberal

Vance Badawey Liberal Niagara Centre, ON

—to begin this process, and possibly to dedicate some time with the FCM as a partner, as they always are, to start this discussion nationally and with all the partners?

11:50 a.m.

Councillor, City of St. Albert, and Co-Founder, Alberta Smart City Alliance

Cathy Heron

Absolutely. I think there is already a movement within FCM to get that started. There are resolutions that they will be voting on this June on that subject.

11:50 a.m.

Liberal

Vance Badawey Liberal Niagara Centre, ON

Mr. Quigley, do you have any comments?

11:50 a.m.

Scholarly Director, Dalhousie University, MacEachen Institute for Public Policy and Governance, As an Individual

Kevin Quigley

I have a few quick points, and then maybe I'll comment on this issue about city engagement.

Just to reiterate some of my earlier comments, I think you need to start with a plan, a long-term vision of where this is all going. I think you need better regional co-operation, and that goes beyond the city to the regions, the bedroom communities, and the rural communities. You have to move forward together.

I think it requires better asset management, so we need better data, but we also need to look at the assets that we're not using, the assets that we can retire, because they cost a lot of money to track. I can't tell you how many times I've had a discussion with people about old bridges that nobody uses, yet we're maintaining them because it's unpopular to take infrastructure away from people.

11:50 a.m.

Liberal

Vance Badawey Liberal Niagara Centre, ON

Added returns on former investments....

11:50 a.m.

Scholarly Director, Dalhousie University, MacEachen Institute for Public Policy and Governance, As an Individual

Kevin Quigley

That's right, but we're constantly building new things and that's very exciting and engaging. The fact of the matter is that retiring or taking something away is unpopular, but I think we need to have those conversations. Better data to show that these bridges aren't being used and we can retire them would be helpful.

Then, of course, we need clear accountability on what the targets are, even interim targets, on what we want to achieve over time, so that we can nudge in the direction that ultimately we want to achieve.

On the issue about the city, I would just caution you, I guess. The thing that concerns me a bit, coming from Nova Scotia, where you have not so many big cities and a lot of regional issues, is that we need better co-operation collectively on some of these issues. If we focus exclusively on the cities, I would be worried about the potential co-operation between the cities and the outlying areas.

11:50 a.m.

Liberal

Vance Badawey Liberal Niagara Centre, ON

That's a good point.