Transport Committee on Nov. 5th, 2020

[Churence Rogers, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

Just to follow up on that, what are the anticipated financial impacts of the pandemic and reduced services on the viability of Marine Atlantic?

[Michael Keenan]

The pandemic has hit almost every transportation provider. Airlines were hit severely, as were transit, intercity busing, intercity rail and ferry services. We see all the ferry operators in Canada have taken an operational and financial hit. We first worked with them to ensure we had the provisions for safe operation. As Marine Atlantic is a Crown corporation in the transport portfolio, we're working closely with it to assess the financial impact going forward.

Our view is that the continued operation of Marine Atlantic in general, and the constitutional service in particular, is non-negotiable. We're simply working through the financial implications and finding a way, with Marine Atlantic, to manage them.

As the minister indicated, it's our assessment that Marine Atlantic's done a really great job, both in managing and dealing with COVID safety for their passengers and clients, and also in adjusting their operations to the disruption to manage their way through. We'll keep working with them on that and make sure the service continues.

[Churence Rogers, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

I experienced first-hand the tremendous service provided by the employees of Marine Atlantic. They were very comforting and reassuring, and treated us very well. It was a very positive experience, with the restrictions they're dealing with.

I asked the minister about the building for Port aux Basques, and he referenced the Marine Atlantic corporate plan. I was wondering when we might be able to see some kind of response to that corporate plan. Will it be sometime soon, or what do you think?

[Michael Keenan]

Melanie, when do we think the Marine Atlantic corporate plan would likely go through? Do we have a sense?

[Melanie Tod, Director General, Crown Corporations and Portfolio Governance, Department of Transport]

Our objective would be in the coming months, as soon as possible. We've received excellent information from Marine Atlantic. We're working it through the system.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you, Ms. Tod.

Thank you, Mr. Keenan, and thank you, Mr. Rogers.

[Churence Rogers, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

We're now going to move on to Mr. Barsalou-Duval for two and a half minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I recently learned through the media that, further to widespread calls from people in Natashquan, Fisheries and Oceans Canada was considering acquiring a port that is currently owned by Transport Canada. Is the department open to the possibility, since Natashquan fishers worry whether they will even be able to fish?

Will the department support it? Where do the negotiations stand?

[Michael Keenan]

Thank you for the question.

I'm going to turn it over to a colleague, the assistant deputy minister of programs, to answer that.

Go ahead, Anu.

[Anuradha Marisetti, Assistant Deputy Minister, Programs, Department of Transport]

We are aware that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans is interested in acquiring the Natashquan wharf, and we are working with them. There are a number of steps we have to take in terms of ensuring that the wharf can be transferred, including environmental remediations if necessary, and just a whole bunch of internal steps.

As we go through them, and as there's interest to move this forward, we will proceed.

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

Do you know how long it might take?

[Anuradha Marisetti]

No, we don't have an idea of a timeline. It's in the very initial discussions with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

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

As I'm sure you can appreciate, this is a matter of life and death for those fishers. Without a port, they can't fish. That means no work and no more village.

[Michael Keenan]

I think that's a fair point.

When we look at these kinds of issues, we consult very carefully and closely with affected parties. We'll work closely with the community and DFO in looking at this issue.

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

Mr. Keenan, are you satisfied with the fact that people have filed more than 10,000 complaints about unrefunded airline tickets, none of which has been dealt with by the Canadian Transportation Agency?

[Michael Keenan]

I would simply come back to the points that the minister raised.

This is a very sensitive issue. It's a very difficult issue. It's one that we're really aware of and considering closely as we do analysis and provide advice on possible measures with respect to the economic crisis in the air sector.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you, Mr. Keenan. Thank you, Mr. Barsalou-Duval.

I'll now move on to Mr. Bachrach.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Keenan, for your answers so far.

My next topic of questioning concerns the high-frequency rail project. As we know, other countries around the world enjoy high-speed rail. I believe Canada is the only country in the G7 that lacks high-speed rail. The proposed project would see trains travelling at speeds of around 170 kilometres an hour; whereas countries like France and Japan have trains that travel at 320 kilometres an hour.

Should Canadians be happy with an option that is still significantly behind what other countries are building and what other countries' citizens are utilizing?

[Michael Keenan]

Thank you for the question.

The member speaks to an area of significant work right now in the Government of Canada in terms of developing a potential project to dramatically improve passenger rail service in the Quebec City to Toronto corridor. Transport Canada worked with Infrastructure Canada, with Via Rail and the Canada Infrastructure Bank, and we set up a joint project office. We brought in some absolutely top-notch people in the world of developing passenger rail projects. They are doing due diligence and creating analysis on options that the government could consider in moving forward to improve passenger rail service.

Until that process gets to a next stage, it's hard to describe exactly what the service would look like. However, I would say that a whole range of options, in terms of improving frequency and improving speed to get better reliability and better travel time, are under consideration.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Is your department considering options that would make us competitive with those other countries that I mentioned?

[Michael Keenan]

The focus is not so much an international point of competitiveness, as opposed to providing better, more convenient and faster rail service to the large number of people who travel in the Quebec City to Toronto corridor.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you, Mr. Keenan and Mr. Bachrach.

We'll now move on for five minutes to Ms. Kusie.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you very much to all the officials for being here today. You were so very kind to brief me. It was two months ago now already, but time goes on. I always like to point out as well that I'm a very proud former public servant, having spent close to a decade and a half at GAC, so it's always lovely to be amongst former colleagues of the public service.

Building on my main point to the minister earlier, what I hope will be true is the release of some type of sector supports in the very near future. As I said, the media reports are that this will be sooner rather than later, which is excellent.

I wanted to know from you what the implementation of sector support might look like, what that possibly could look like. Would it be done through regional initiatives, as we have seen with this first great piece with the north? Would it be done on an application process, airline by airline, or is it dependent upon whatever type of structure is used, be it debt equity or some type of aid?

I was hoping, just for the sake of that, when this is announced—which I hope is soon—implementation will be very fast and these funds will be allowed to flow as quickly as possible to the affected parts of the sector. In my opinion, throughout the pandemic, we've seen distributions of funds from the government, some of which were more timely than others.

If this is in fact happening, if this does occur, I would be interested to know what the implementation would look like and to get an idea as to timing.

[Michael Keenan]

That's a great question. I won't repeat what the minister said and the discussion in the first hour, obviously. However, there are acute pressures and acute challenges in the sector, and there's an active discussion of options in terms of the government's response. What I would say on implementation is that it is a key question, because once the government decides it wishes to do something as a matter of policy and what and when, then that's great but for it to matter, it has to be implemented.

In terms of implementation, I would say that it could be any of the options the member listed, depending upon what kinds of decisions the government takes with respect to addressing the issues, which gets back to the comments the minister made. I would say that implementation is something that officials are supposed to worry about and support the government on. Whatever the government makes decisions on, and whenever, with respect to these issues, we will certainly be working with our colleagues in other departments, and we'll certainly be working with the stakeholders in the sector to seek to implement those decisions absolutely as quickly as possible given the nature of the challenge.