Thank you, Chair, and thank you for inviting me.
Today I'd like to talk about three things: the state of public transit, the benefits of investing in it, and some features of existing programs that prevent funds from reaching communities in need.
I'll begin by talking about public transit.
With more people working remotely or studying at home, ridership has dropped. At this time last year, ridership was down almost 85%, and it is now down about 60%. This means that more than two million people rely on public transit every day. They are most likely to be low-income workers living too far from work to walk or bike to work, but have incomes too low to buy a car. Many are seniors or disabled people carrying out essential daily tasks.
For visiting a doctor or shopping for groceries, public transit is a social enabler. We give people access to employment and education.
Before the pandemic, about half the cost of running transit came from the fare box, and so if we're going to keep service levels so that people who rely on transit can get where they need to go, ongoing financial support from government is going to be needed, as funding through the safe restart agreements is beginning to expire.
We can't let urban mobility become the privilege of only some people. Rather, it must be accessible to all, and that can only happen through public transit. This is the operational aspect.
Of all the infrastructure classes, building public transit creates the most jobs. For every dollar that’s invested, $1.50 of economic activity results. It's also a key way to meet our climate goals. I think about before COVID, when public transit reduced emissions by more than 14 million tonnes a year. That’s like taking three million cars off the road.
The more we develop public transit, the more we connect communities and the more we can fight climate change.
This is why we are so supportive of the permanent transit fund that will take effect in 2026. Predictable, stable funding will let transit systems plan. This will be of most benefit to larger, rail-based projects in our biggest cities.
If we get the details of the fund right, this will be transformational. We'll soon be releasing a paper with some recommendations on how to do that, and we'll make sure that every member of the committee gets a copy.
Before wrapping up, I want to address one other issue that we're studying today: ensuring that infrastructure investments reach communities. We have large regional discrepancies. In the four largest provinces, where provincial governments take advantage of available federal funds, transit gets built. However, in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and the Atlantic provinces, provincial governments for the most part do not. Over the first six years of the investing in Canada infrastructure program, the six smallest provinces have used only 15% of the available federal funds. In some provinces, it's even lower—like 5%. As a result, over the last five years, a lot of Infrastructure Canada’s budget has been unspent. I hope that the permanent transit fund will address this issue. We think there are ways that it can. One way is by adopting proven features like the community-building fund, formerly known as the gas tax fund.
It effectively links the dollars to the program, particularly because municipalities are invited to the table.
It respects Quebec’s jurisdiction by flowing funds through a provincial agency. Another way is by recognizing that one size of a program doesn’t fit all. What works in Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver is not going to necessarily work in Moncton and Brandon. To help smaller projects in smaller communities get built, we think the permanent transit fund should have a baseline stream, an amount that every system across Canada will receive whether or not the province is able to match that. That would help communities in provinces that traditionally don’t invest in transit to get their projects built, and would continue what’s already working well: where larger provinces are keen partners with the federal government and municipalities.
Thank you again for inviting me to appear before the committee today.
I'd be happy to answer any questions you have.
Thank you.