Thank you very much.
Good morning to you, Mr. Berthold, a former colleague in the municipal world. I would also like to recognize Alain Rayes, the MP for our region.
Good morning, Mr. Rayes. I can’t see you, but I know that you’re there.
This standing committee has asked me to help with its activities on smart cities, especially regional ones. When we look at that question, which is a very broad one, we realize that the main issues for the regions are first and foremost to do with the availability of specialized workers, those able to help cities carry out their various projects.
In recent years, city council here in the Ville de Victoriaville decided to create a position for someone with expertise in social media. We used that expertise to be able to promote a certain number of projects. But, in broader terms, we are finding that our needs are much greater than that. So there is a challenge in the area of a specialized workforce.
Of course, there is also the issue of investment for smaller, or medium-sized communities. The investment required to obtain the major infrastructures that will allow our cities to become smarter is still very much a reality.
I sent my presentation notes to the committee. As you can see in the document, in our city, we see the development of a smart city as having six components: governance, smart citizens, smart economy, mobility, environment and habitat.
In certain aspects, regional cities are able to move forward by themselves. Here in Victoriaville, for example, in the governance area, we are able to improve our ability to communicate, especially with our residents, and to improve our online and webcasting systems. In that respect, there is no problem; things are going very well.
As for the idea of smart citizens, we are able to encourage citizen participation by using our internal resources to develop platforms. We have certainly done so, successfully, we feel, with our MonIdée.ca platform, for example. It allows our residents to be consulted regularly and to provide their views and opinions on the Ville de Victoriaville’s various projects.
Then we have the components of environment and habitat. For the environment, we have been able to use sensors and smart electric systems to manage our networks better. That is one aspect where a regional city is able to be active, as is also the case with a number of programs in the area of habitat.
It is a little more complicated in the areas of a smart economy or smart mobility. This is because they require more significant infrastructures. Investments are required for a municipality to acquire good systems, good applications and good infrastructure in order to meet the expectations of the residents, and especially in order to reach the smart city goals we have set. We have made progress. In Victoriaville, we have made progress in the area of equipment, such as charging stations. Our smart city focus is actually in the area of sustainable development. We have been able to deploy—