Transport Committee on June 8th, 2017

[Alain Rayes, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

With all due respect to the committee members and the study on smart communities, I think we can bring in all kinds of witnesses to hear about their experiences. We have heard from many, and heaven knows how important the subject is, but the priority, even before we start thinking about smart cities, should be on hearing from communities that do not currently have access to fibre optics, that do not have access to the technology. As things stand, multiple regions across the country simply do not have access to it.

The minister has all the necessary authority in that regard and makes his infrastructure choices. The government announced a $180-billion plan and says that the infrastructure bank is coming soon. We should know a bit more. Perhaps the bank could even support Canada-wide projects aimed at getting everyone connected.

At the Federation of Canadian Municipalities' annual conference last week, we learned that the federal government intends to hold a smart cities challenge, so the government already seems to have a clear sense of what it wants to do on that front.

I think the people the committee should hear from are those who do not have that access. What should the government do? What should the committee recommend to the Department of Finance and the government to make this an essential service that is accessible to everyone?

That said, I'm not trying to take anything away from the rest of it, but, as the expression goes, we're putting the cart before the horse. It's urgent that we get everyone across the country connected, no matter where they live. That is what we need to build on in order to help all municipalities.

Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto, in short, all the big cities, have been working on this for a long time now, believe me. For years, municipal associations have been meeting with experts from all over the world to get advice on best practices. They are already active, they know the programs, they know which doors to knock on for the funding to carry out these projects. They don't need a challenge.

We aren't the ones in the lead; I would even say we're behind them. They are already ahead of us.

We need to give this serious consideration. We need to find witnesses who will make the recommendations that will help the government, so it can make the right decisions to ensure everyone is connected.

That is my humble opinion, anyway. Otherwise, it will simply be a waste of time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Mr. Badawey's motion is on infrastructure and smart communities. Communities means large and small. We keep saying “cities”, but the reference is to communities, which is good because it includes small communities that are struggling as well, I think, given your point.

[Alain Rayes, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Madam Chair, I just want to clarify something.

I don't oppose Mr. Badawey's motion. In fact, I completely agree that we work on it. My point is simply this: if I had any sway over the witness list, I would encourage the committee to learn as much as it could to figure out how to get communities connected. We could work with private companies—who are willing to work with the government—to put it all together.

I want to make myself perfectly clear: I am not at all against this motion. I, too, have a municipal background. Before we hear from Vancouver and Montreal officials on what their cities are already doing, we should, instead, look at how we can get everyone connected so that we can all make progress.

Believe me, the big cities are already working on it; they don't need us in order to think about it. They have their own experts, advisors, and lobbies looking after them. I just wanted to clarify that I am not at all opposed to this motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

That's fair enough; agreed.

[Alain Rayes, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

I want to clarify that I am not against it, just so we're all clear.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

I mentioned the other day that we need to get our witness list for this study on smart cities by June 14, so we will have it by the time we get to this.

Okay, Ms. Block, I have a list here. Hold on.

Then we need to move on to Bill C-49.

Mr. Badawey.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Mr. Rayes, I agree 100%. We want to get the right witnesses in here. We want to talk about those issues and, quite frankly, that's what this process is for.

As an example, in my former life, fibre was an issue in our area. We dealt with it by leveraging expertise as well as finances to put fibre into our area. We created our municipal company that had shareholders. We took a company that we invested $300,000 in. I know my little city sold its shares for $7.5 million 10 years later, so it was a pretty good investment and we got the hard infrastructure in.

The second part of it, and this goes to Mr. Rayes's concern, is equity with respect to access to infrastructure—and this goes to Mr. Bratina's motion as well—whether it be fibre, clean water, roads, which then create that quality of life and equality. It creates that economic development, equality, and that social equality.

Mr. Rayes is saying exactly what this is going to do. It's going to be a layered effect. We're going to discuss, listen, and learn on a daily basis from those in the business—more so than the municipalities.

The second part of it is, and the last comment I want to make is—and the mayors know this—that the wants and needs are very expensive, so to be able to achieve that equality, we're going to have to create some pretty creative partnerships.

In my former life we did that and were very successful in taking $7 million and creating $50 million, and a lot of that will be by working with the private sector vis-à-vis the infrastructure bank. When you look at the infrastructure bank, that's what it will be doing; it will be giving us that. It's an enabler that will give us the ability to leverage dollars to then invest in our communities to create that equality with respect to that triple bottom line: social, environmental, and economic.

The best thing it's going to do is not to saddle the next generation with that infrastructure debt or deficit, as has been the case with our generation. It's going to be dealt with by leveraging and taking care of those investments and getting better returns.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Mr. Hardie.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

This is just a quick reflection. As we look at our witness list, it may be instructive to go to people who've experienced what happens when all of a sudden their service levels are lifted to good places.

I was with the fisheries and oceans committee last week in the far north: in Inuvik, Paulatuk, and Tuktoyaktuk. Their Internet service up there is probably leagues better than most of the rural areas in Canada. They have four bars on their cell phones all the time. If we talk to them, I'm sure they're going to tell us not just about the hard dollars and cents values of having that kind of access to the rest of the world, but the social and cultural value, and all the rest of those things.

I think this will help us cover the monetary and non-monetary benefits of moving cities toward being smart, because there are some significant benefits when you make those kinds of investments that I'm sure a lot of folks at this table would like to see happen in their homes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Mr. Iacono.

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

I just want to bring back—

Last week, we discussed my colleague's motion. I had a problem with the wording in the French version, specifically, the phrase l'aménagement des terres, which I propose be replaced with l'aménagement des territoires.

Is that the right term? It would be more in line with the English version.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Ms. Block.

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

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I'm finding it interesting that we are going into such detail about a study that we don't have on the calendar yet. I'm thinking it probably won't get on the calendar until sometime in late September or early October given that we don't know if we're going to get through our aviation study by the end of this session, and given that we have a schedule before us that's going to see us sitting for four days before the session even starts, for a total of 20-some hours, on Bill C-49. We're then going to have to report that back to the House, and yet we're going into great detail about a study that we don't even have on the calendar yet. I recognize that you've asked for witnesses by June 14. When do you want the witnesses for Bill C-49 in?

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

We're going to have that in the next discussion, once we close off the discussion on this one, which I think we have now talked about enough. August 1 was the suggested date, but we'll go into Bill C-49 and see what the committee suggests.

At the moment that's what we have decided, so we can get any of the suggested witnesses in by June 14, so that the clerk has them when the time allows for us to move into that particular study.

Mr. Badawey.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Just to clarify Mrs. Block's concern, a lot of this discussion actually came from Mr. Rayes's question at the last meeting with respect to clarification on the smart cities motion. From what I understood at least, he wanted to recognize what the substance, the guts of that, was going to be. I had asked the chair to bring it up today so we could all discuss it and get some thoughts on the direction being taken.

A lot of that, Kelly, is due to the fact that we all come from the same background. We've all been there trying to struggle with these challenges, so we can get somewhat of a blueprint so we can move forward, especially when it comes to establishing witnesses.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Okay, we've had enough discussion on that one, and I think we all know what the intent was.

Oh, wait a minute. Mr. Rayes is the last person to comment before we move to our Bill C-49discussion.

[Alain Rayes, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

On what was just said, I don't know that we should rush to hear from witnesses as soon as June 14, since we won't be studying the subject until after the summer break, during which we'll all be in our respective ridings. Perhaps we could allow a month to propose witnesses. That would give plenty of time to contact them. That might help us, on our end, do a better job.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Mr. Rayes—

[Alain Rayes, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

It's a suggestion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Mr. Rayes is suggesting that rather than having the witness list in by June 14, we postpone that to July 14. Is that correct, Mr. Rayes?

Mr. Berthold.

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

Madam Chair, I suggest we keep the witness list open. As you know, everything involving technology moves fast. For that reason, I think we could have a basic list of witnesses in by July 14, but we should keep it open so that we could add others and not completely rule out everyone else.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Now, with respect to Bill C-49—

Mr. Badawey, is that on infrastructure?

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

No.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

I think we have the points on the floor regarding where we're going on the infrastructure.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

You know what they say about assuming, Madam Chair.