Evidence of meeting #2 for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in the 43rd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was subcommittee.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Geneviève Gosselin  Committee Researcher
Clerk of the Committee  Ms. Caroline Bosc

3:50 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Vance Badawey

Mr. Barsalou-Duval.

3:50 p.m.

Bloc

Xavier Barsalou-Duval Bloc Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC

Naturally, I support the amendment.

3:50 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Vance Badawey

Does everybody have a handle on the amendment?

Mr. Rogers.

3:50 p.m.

Liberal

Churence Rogers Liberal Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL

As amended, I guess, yes.

I have no particular issue with that suggestion. This is something that I'm not very familiar with and many of the committee members probably aren't very familiar with, so I'd suggest, yes, maybe you want to insert “a minimum of two”.

3:50 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Vance Badawey

Mr. Barsalou-Duval, is that fine?

3:50 p.m.

Bloc

Xavier Barsalou-Duval Bloc Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC

Yes.

3:50 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Vance Badawey

Mr. Doherty.

3:50 p.m.

Conservative

Todd Doherty Conservative Cariboo—Prince George, BC

I would agree with that. As I mentioned yesterday with respect to this issue, with the 10 deaths in the last 20 months and the CN rail strike over the safety issues, I think this is a topic that could go beyond two meetings. I think we agreed at that time that from the first meeting we would probably have more questions that could go from there, so I have no problem with this.

3:50 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Vance Badawey

Thank you.

Are there any further questions or comments on the amendment?

(Amendment agreed to)

(Motion as amended agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

Thank you.

Churence, Mr. Rogers, you're up.

3:50 p.m.

Liberal

Churence Rogers Liberal Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL

This motion reads:

That the Committee commit to undertake a study focusing on current and anticipated labour shortages in the Canadian transportation sector, for example truck drivers, mariners, maintenance staff, trainers/instructors and various types of engineers and technicians in the aviation sector. The study would identify the implications of such shortages and look at possible solutions to alleviate problems stemming from them; and that, in consultation with the Committee Members, the Chair be empowered to coordinate the resources and scheduling necessary to execute these studies in six (6) meetings or fewer.

I want to add one comment, Mr. Chair. I met this morning with the gentlemen from the Canadian Ferry Association, which is of course extremely important in B.C., Atlantic Canada and some other parts of the country. They were telling me that they have major shortages on the horizon because of people who are retiring in the next few years. They have a major challenge on their hands. That's another example of an area in the transportation sector that we really need to take a good look at to see where the biggest challenges are. That's what this resolution is trying to accomplish.

3:50 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Vance Badawey

Thank you, Mr. Rogers.

Any questions or comments?

I have Mr. Doherty and Mr. Sidhu.

3:50 p.m.

Conservative

Todd Doherty Conservative Cariboo—Prince George, BC

Again, I will offer my comments on this, having been in the aviation and transportation industry for over 22 years. While the motion itself is very broad, it is a very important and, I thought, very smart motion, as I said to Churence, though I said I probably wouldn't say it publicly.

I spoke at a conference in Berkeley a number of years ago, and at that time we had road, rail, marine and air industry executives there who were all talking about our challenges, even to the point where the American Trucking Associations was going to colleges and universities trying to entice college and university grads to become truck drivers. We're seeing the same void here in Canada. There are other incidents. We have a massive air carrier, one of our largest in the country, looking at recruiting pilots with as few as 70 hours' training and then taking them and training them themselves because there's such a pilot shortage. I believe it would be very prudent to study this, but I would recommend the following. It was a comment that was made yesterday. On one day we study trucking transport, on the next day we study aviation and marine and rail; and perhaps out of that, we may have future meetings or may need a future meeting for another sector, or what have you, or for further questions.

3:55 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Vance Badawey

Thank you, Mr. Doherty.

Mr. Sidhu.

3:55 p.m.

Liberal

Maninder Sidhu Liberal Brampton East, ON

Yes, it's definitely an important motion, especially in Brampton. Transportation, especially the trucking industry, is huge, and it has a huge shortage as well.

I come from a transportation background. I'm a customs broker by trade, so I have dealt with all modes of transportation whether it's trucking or ocean or marine, and there's a huge shortage.

I don't think we need to restrict ourselves to just six meetings or fewer. We don't know what the study might turn into. I think we need at least six meetings. It could go more because this is very important to many ridings across Canada, and we might need to look at it in more depth. I don't know if we want to limit ourselves.

3:55 p.m.

Conservative

Todd Doherty Conservative Cariboo—Prince George, BC

I think it's in the committee's purview to be able to make that decision as we go as well.

3:55 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Vance Badawey

We have Mr. Bachrach, and then I'm going to Mr. El-Khoury.

3:55 p.m.

NDP

Taylor Bachrach NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I agree this is an important issue and certainly relevant to the riding I represent and worthy of study.

My concern is that if we add up all of the meetings from the motions that have been brought before us, a total of 42 meetings have been proposed. From the conversation so far, it seems that we are adding, not subtracting. That would take us through to November without any room for estimates or legislation, which, of course, are going to require us to focus elsewhere.

As important as these issues are, my thought is that we should consider how many meetings we want to spend on each topic, because other issues are going to arise that require the committee's time, and spending eight meetings talking about this one issue, while it's important, is going to come at the cost of dealing with the other issues.

We could maybe talk about prioritization. We could look at these motions and simply not move forward with some of them. Certainly, some I think are a higher priority than others or we could have a more focused approach, which would meant that we would be able to deal with more topics as a committee.

Perhaps slightly contrary to my friend, Mr. Rogers, I was going to propose that we limit it to four meetings as opposed to six.

3:55 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Vance Badawey

Mr. El-Khoury, Mr. Rogers, and then Mr. Davidson.

3:55 p.m.

Liberal

Fayçal El-Khoury Liberal Laval—Les Îles, QC

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

This motion is very important to me. In Quebec, where I'm from, we have a labour shortage.

If workers with the skills to do the job are available, can they be brought in from elsewhere? Do we need the Department of Citizenship and Immigration to step in?

In my riding, three truck drivers are facing deportation. They've been working here for 10 to 15 years. They're married and their children are Quebeckers, but because their political refugee claims weren't filed as prescribed, they're on the verge of having to leave.

Can anything be done to prevent their deportation and keep them here? After all, these are people who have been here for 10 to 15 years, and Quebec is in need of tradespeople to drive its economy.

I submit that for the committee's consideration.

3:55 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Vance Badawey

Thank you.

Mr. Rogers, and then Mr. Davidson.

3:55 p.m.

Liberal

Churence Rogers Liberal Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL

For the benefit of the entire committee, when I introduced these motions at subcommittee I said these could be a part of the major work plan of this entire committee for the next several weeks and months. However, I did suggest that the subcommittee would further study them with the committee members and decide which ones we wanted to focus on, first, second, third.

I think it's incumbent upon this committee to work as a group to prioritize each of the pieces of the work plan. We recommended these resolutions. The number of meetings has to be a concern. I agree.

The depth of the study, and how many meetings we do, and all of those kinds of things we could try to co-operate and work together on in the subcommittee and in committee to decide what's most important, and which should go first. The other members of the committee may very well bring forward other resolutions that we have to consider because they are important topics that impact your part of the country or your riding.

I'm open to having these prioritized and having members make suggestions about whether we need four meetings or six meetings or what we can do.

I want to offer that, Mr. Chair.

4 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Vance Badawey

Thank you, Mr. Rogers.

Mr. Davidson.

4 p.m.

Conservative

Scot Davidson Conservative York—Simcoe, ON

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We have the Max 8 and then rail, both of which are transportation issues, and then employment, all of which are important issues.

I want to make sure that we don't get off track and cover all of transportation out of the gate and not at infrastructure. I know that my colleague sitting beside me, Michael Barrett, and I have ridings with a huge lack of Internet because of rural digital infrastructure gap in rural Canada. So I want to make sure that rural Canada is represented and that we definitely tackle that issue because it's affecting education and small business, especially in my riding of York—Simcoe.

4 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Vance Badawey

As we discussed at our last meeting, this is all up to the committee. What we're all trying to do here when bringing these motions forward is be as transparent as possible and throw everything on the table. Then it's up to the committee. The more we have on the table, the more we know and the more we can recognize what those priorities should be.

One of the challenges that we had during the last session on this committee was that things popped up over time—which is expected, granted. However, when they pop up, other things sometimes go on the back burner. We have an intention to move forward on something and we cue it up. Then, all of a sudden, something else comes up. I think the intent here is to get everything on the table. Granted, other things are going to pop up, but when we have all of the desires on the table, we, as a committee, can prioritize. Yes, those priorities might change, but that's up to you folks. That's all up to you.

That said, we can also look at how some of these might happen in four meetings, although we were planning on six meetings. Some might happen in more meetings, but, again, that's up to you. When we're putting these things together, we're going to want to expedite them—trust me. As the chair, I will say that if we can do it in four meetings, by all means we're going to do it in four meetings. That way we can free up some time for the next study we want to do.

Prioritization and queuing is up to you folks—that's my point—and then, as time goes on, the need for time or not.

Mr. Davidson.

4 p.m.

Conservative

Scot Davidson Conservative York—Simcoe, ON

Just quickly.... A pop-up issue that you'd be referring to, just for a simple example, would be the ongoing rail blockades, as we might want to look at how much they are costing the Canadian economy.