Transport Committee on April 18th, 2018

[Wendy Reuter]

That's certainly what we've seen as a result of this funding. There's been a history of federal investment in transit infrastructure for over a decade now. Incrementally, the impact of that has grown in the ability of the transit industry to deliver on those transit investments. This particular plan allows for long-term and predictable infrastructure funding. It allows those communities to think, longer term than they've been able to do before, about how their communities will need to be able to move, not just this year and next year, but 10 years into the future, and about the infrastructure and asset management plans they'll need to make that happen.

These are significantly larger investments that they're able to consider over that time span than they've ever been able to before. It's not just the larger systems. The fact that this funding is flexible and available and accessible to the smaller communities as well allows them to think about how they can facilitate and serve the needs of their communities in meaningful ways.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much; I'm sorry I have to cut you off.

Madame Sansoucy.

[Brigitte Sansoucy, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

My first question is for Ms. Reuter, but don't hesitate, Ms. De Silva, if you want to add something.

I understood that many commitments were made during the first phase of the Public Transit Fund but that, unfortunately, the time required to conclude the bilateral negotiations and approve the list of projects led to delays. As you explained well, these were due to the complexity of public transit infrastructure projects, the supply process and the short construction seasons. Consequently, certain projects will unfortunately not be completed by the deadline of March 31, 2019.

You explained the three factors that led to that situation. I'd like to hear what you have to say about the consequences of this. In your opinion, what are the potential solutions we could put forward to have things proceed more smoothly under future agreements?

[Wendy Reuter]

I understand the question is about the factors we've identified in that early period and how we can learn from those opportunities about how the funding can be effective in the future.

The first is about the disconnect between what's happening on the ground and how the funds flow and the reporting looking at the budgeting. That's one factor, understanding what the project plans are and that they are taking place on the ground, even though the funding is not being reported yet in Ottawa. That's piece number one; recognition of that is the first matter. The economic impact is already happening on the ground. The municipalities and transit systems are already investing; they're contracting; they're building; and we wait as the paperwork, essentially, comes into Ottawa and is funded.

The second is with respect to the timing of how invoices come into Ottawa and the proportion that they're paid. As invoices come in, they're paid whatever the federal proportion is on that particular project: 40% or 50%, some other variations in other places. This happens on an individual invoicing basis. One thing we could be considering is, when we understand what the total project estimate will be, and the government has understood what their contribution to that would be, we could consider the opportunity for the federal contribution to flow at a higher level in the early stages, to invest in those projects and then continue to cap off at whatever the total contribution would be, the 40% or the 50%.

This would allow a couple of things. It would allow the funds to flow into the project more quickly; it would allow the transit system projects to not have to exactly match up on a timing basis. The municipal and the provincial contributions would decouple that requirement and if there was any variance toward the end of the project, there would be opportunities to reconcile it with the federal contribution.

[Jan De Silva]

I agree with the comments about the timing of funding and advancing it. The other piece that I would speak to, particularly in the context of the greater Toronto and Hamilton area, even through to Waterloo, is that increasingly we're working with the cities to say, let's not think of it as a city project, because the reality is that our workforce and our businesses operate across the entire zone.

There is a proposal that we've been advocating across the Toronto-Waterloo corridor to upload all of the municipal transit authorities into a super regional body. It would have the scope and scale of something that could be of interest to the infrastructure bank and potentially to pension funds, and it would enable us to have the funding we need for first- and last-mile technologies to create a seamless user experience throughout. It would also potentially reduce some of the burden on federal funding to get these projects done on an accelerated basis. That's another way that we're trying to tackle it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Madam Sansoucy, your time is up.

Mr. Hardie.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Andrew, about three years ago, the country was teetering on the brink of a recession. Things weren't going very well. There has been quite a change.

From your standpoint, as we're looking at near full employment, what is the capacity for you to find the people you need to do the work you're doing?

[Andrew Stevenson]

I would echo some of the comments previously that stated engineering firms, of which our sister company is one, were looking for people to come out sooner. We've found with not only consultants, but it's been contractors...and I say this tongue in cheek, that it's been lucky that oil took a dip, because a lot of those same people were available to do the projects for infrastructure renewal.

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

Do you think, then, that there is a need for complementary programs from the federal government or provinces to do the investment in the trades that people were alluding to a bit earlier?

[Andrew Stevenson]

It would definitely benefit.

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

Ms. De Silva, I want to talk about your national urban strategy.

I can certainly see the benefit of having a national urban strategy and the supporting piece from the federal government for funding for infrastructure.

What about the necessity for the appropriate urban planning to take place at the urban level? I'm talking about land use planning, preserving industrial land, making sure that we're not dealing with production plants here and warehouses way over there. At what level are you confident that we have all of those pieces properly aligned to take proper advantage of say, a national investment in infrastructure?

[Jan De Silva]

Your point is extremely well taken. It's fundamental that we have some form of regional economic blueprint that anchors that planning process.

We are going to be doing a pilot for CGCC in the Toronto-Waterloo corridor. We're working with several academic institutions and other organizations to look at population growth, economic trends, infrastructure needs for the economy, that type of thing, to give us that kind of plan. That is a critical foundation for any kind of national urban strategy to work.

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

I think it was Mr. Leipert who brought up the other day that he's concerned that the federal government puts out money and it's up to whomever gets it to use it as they see fit. He was concerned about, I think ashtrays at bus stops or something. No, that was somebody else.

Given that we're short of time, I'm going to pass the rest of my time on to Mr. Badawey.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Hardie. I appreciate that.

We spoke earlier about the partnerships and the obvious infrastructure investments that are made. Your continued contribution to ensuring that those investments yield disciplined asset management is very much appreciated.

I want to dig a bit deeper and am very much interested in looking at the investments that can be made to ensure more robust integrated infrastructure with, as you mentioned Ms. De Silva, transportation and other, in a binational fashion. What can we do together to make that happen in a more expedient manner?

[Jan De Silva]

Certainly, with the whole concept or premise of the national urban strategy being anchored by a regional plan, it really helps lift the discussion and the understanding of needs. For instance, rather than debating a single track of transit it's looking across this entire economic zone in terms of the big picture, what's needed, and how we look at different mechanisms to fund it. Is it an REM-type project out of Montreal where you can bring in a Caisse de dépôt? Is it something that needs to be happening much more locally? I think this is very much anchored in a regional economic blueprint. Certainly, my partners in the Canadian Global Cities Council are very interested in moving forward with that kind of benchmarking and approach.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

You have four minutes, Mr. Badawey, in your round.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

I want to expand a bit further. Again, I do want to express my appreciation for your being here. There's no question that your involvement has been very valuable because we just can't do it ourselves. We deal with the private sector, you folks, FCMA, our partners, municipalities.

With that, when we talk about infrastructure we often talk about the obvious: infrastructure investments, the lifting of the burden financially on the property taxpayers, the water and waste-water ratepayers, and of course, ultimately down the road, future generations with respect to having shouldered that infrastructure debt. What contributes more to that is when we get returns on those investments based on economic factors.

You mentioned the port of Oshawa earlier and the challenges that we have there. Also, we see the bottlenecks in Niagara coming over the international border starting right from New York city and the eastern seaboard to Philadelphia, to Baltimore; and the list goes right on to western New York, to the Peace Bridge, into Ontario. Then you come to a halt when you hit the QEW, the 401, the 407, and all the arterials. You have the Welland Canal there, you have the St. Lawrence, and you have the Great Lakes. It's a shared Great Lakes system between the U.S. and the states. It's right down the St. Lawrence and right to Montreal on both sides of the border.

I'd like to hear some ideas with respect to the supply chain. All of you are into that environment. I'd like to hear some ideas from you within the existing supply chain and what we should in fact really be targeting in terms of partnership with the provinces, territories, municipalities, and the private sector, going beyond the obvious and beyond the traditional. Taking into consideration greater returns, what should we be targeting with investments to then enhance that binational, integrated network?

[Jan De Silva]

If I could speak to it in the context of the southern Ontario work that we've done, it's also looking at where we have capacity in that geography. We should look at Welland. We're looking actually at Hamilton because the airport, the port, and the rail access there has capacity. We're trying to take a look at whether that could be a staging point for goods coming in across the border.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Can you explain who “we” is?

[Jan De Silva]

We, being the Toronto Region Board of Trade, in conjunction with the other chambers, and the Toronto-Waterloo corridor, are looking at that being a potential staging point for goods coming across the border that could be redeployed through various modes to get to the parts they need to across the region, and reciprocally, for goods going down, to use that as a staging point.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

If I may, Ms. De Silva, what you're looking at is taking the GTA that was once like this in terms of its size and economic cluster, and now widening the cluster to include the K-W area, the Hamilton area, the Niagara area, and even western New York right down to the eastern seaboard which, by the way, is a pretty robust economy. It's within a one day's drive, and it's over 44% of North America's annual income. With that all said, it's really enhancing the infrastructure vis-à-vis the investments that are made to then therefore enhance a binational, economic cluster.

[Jan De Silva]

I agree.

I have a quick point on that. We coordinate all of our research with the same researchers who work with the Great Lakes economic council ,so we have a complete picture, and the pain points are on the Ontario side. It's not so much on the U.S. side; it really is a matter of once the goods get across the border. How do we expedite the deployment to where they need to get to?

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

That's a great point.

It also leads to another project that this committee is working on with respect to trade corridors. One of the things that Minister Garneau has announced is that the reason for his trade corridor initiative is to get rid of those bottlenecks. We're experiencing that in Canada's largest economic region, which is the GTA, and down into the Niagara area, so those investments are needed.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

We'll move to Mr. Chong.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Thank you to our witnesses for their testimony.

I just want to bring it back to why we're here today. The PBO has issued a number of reports now, critical of the government's infrastructure plan or lack thereof. The PBO is critical of the fact that the government's infrastructure is not producing the economic growth and job creation that was promised. It's critical of the fact that the government has allowed a significant amount of funds to lapse and re-profiled them for years to come.

I want to bring it back to the reality on the ground for the constituents who I represent in southern Ontario and people across the country who are frustrated with an underinvestment in infrastructure in this country. StatsCan tells us that every day in this country 16 million people leave their house to commute—16 million Canadians each and every day—12 million of them living in our city regions. They also reported in their most recent report that commuting times are increasing. They increased 3% in the five-year period for which they were reporting last November, a 3% increase in commuting times. In the Toronto region alone, commuting times are now over one hour only surpassed by those living in New York city, where household incomes are double what they are in the GTA, and people are getting frustrated.

Governments keep talking about making these investments, but the reality on the ground is that commuting is getting longer and longer, traffic is getting worse and worse, and they are not seeing the results. If the average commute time in the Toronto census metropolitan area, as reported by Statistics Canada, is over an hour, you can rest assured that for many people it's well into the hour-and-a-half to two-hour time frame. This is negatively affecting the day-to-day quality of people's lives and it's affecting our ability to grow the economy and to produce the prosperity that we all want. I'm just speaking for those people today. It's the thing I hear most consistently, that people are getting frustrated, stuck in traffic. One truck overturns on the 401 and you have a backup that lasts for an entire day. You have backup for tens of miles going on. It's getting so bad that police forces are resorting to drones to try to figure out where the traffic accidents are, to try to alleviate the blockages. It's not getting better; it's getting worse. We as a committee are trying to figure out where the problems are in the government's infrastructure programs and make recommendations to unglue these programs, so that we can get the funds flowing more quickly and address this real quality of life issue for Canadians.