Transport Committee on May 6th, 2021

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Good afternoon, everyone. It's my pleasure to call this meeting to order. I'd like to welcome all of you to meeting number 31 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format pursuant to the House order of January 25, 2021. The proceedings will be made available via the House of Commons website. The webcast will always show the person speaking rather than the entirety of the committee.

To ensure an orderly meeting, there are a few points I'd like to make.

First off, members and witnesses may speak in the official language of your choice. Interpretation services are available for this meeting. You have the choice at the bottom of your screen of floor, English or French.

For members participating in person, proceed as you usually would when the committee is meeting in person in a committee room. Keep in mind the directives from the Board of Internal Economy regarding masking and health protocols.

Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name. If you are on the video conference, please click on the microphone icon to unmute yourselves. For those in the room, your microphone will be controlled by the proceedings and verification officer as normal.

I remind you that all comments by members and witnesses should be addressed through the chair. When you are not speaking, your mike should be on mute. With regard to a speaking list, the committee clerk and I will do our very best to maintain the order of speaking for all members, whether they are participating virtually or in person.

Members, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted by the committee on October 29, 2020, the committee will now continue its study of targeted infrastructure investments.

I would now like to welcome and introduce our witnesses for today. First, from the City of Corner Brook, we have Mayor Jim Parsons. From the City of Sept-Îles, we have Mayor Réjean Porlier. From the Hamilton-Oshawa Port Authority, we have Ian Hamilton, president and chief executive officer. Finally, from the Insurance Bureau of Canada, we have Craig Stewart, vice-president, federal affairs.

With that, I am going to start off with Mayor Parsons.

Mayor Parsons, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Jim Parsons, Mayor, City of Corner Brook]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to the committee for providing me with the opportunity to speak to you today on behalf of the people of Corner Brook.

Federal infrastructure funding is of immense importance to our community. Before I speak about the specifics of our situation as a municipality, I would like to mention one notable, recent project in our community.

Corner Brook was founded on the development of our pulp and paper mill almost 100 years ago, and we are now a modern government services centre for the west coast of Newfoundland, with a campus of Memorial University and a burgeoning tourism sector. That said, our paper mill is still uniquely important to our community and our regional economy.

We have a deep-water port here in the city. For many years, it was underutilized for industrial purposes, but two years ago we were able to secure funding through the national trade corridors fund to purchase container-handling equipment, including a new crane. This enabled us to attract a new international container service to the port, which would have our mill as an anchor tenant.

When COVID-19 hit last spring, the newsprint market, of course, in the U.S. disappeared almost overnight. This was a disaster for our mill. However, our investment in our port saved the day. Container service commenced in May 2020, allowing our mill to reach new markets, support a more diversified client base and reduce shipping costs overall. Our mill prevailed against the additional impacts of COVID-19, outsurviving many global competitors. This success is largely due to a relatively small $5.5-million investment from the federal government, and I would like to thank MP Gudie Hutchings for her support on this file.

As a city of approximately 20,000 people, we are able to sustain our operations through responsible fiscal management. However, we rely on federal and provincial partners for help when it comes to the development and maintenance of our extensive municipal infrastructure.

Each year we fund our infrastructure development primarily through the following sources: provincial, multi-year capital funding; the gas tax, of course; the ICIP; and ad hoc funds through Infrastructure Canada like the new Canada healthy communities initiative and through programs through the ACOA and the FCM.

We typically use our multi-year, provincial funding and our gas tax funding on our “must have” or “can't wait” projects, like water and sewer upgrades, and road investment and repair. ICIP funds and other funds are used typically for bigger projects or “nice to have” projects. Since we can't count on any specific project getting funded through those latter streams, we either have to tolerate potential delays on those projects or have backup funding.

We have experienced a few challenges with the ICIP that I would like to inform you about. As it is project-based, there is little predictability as to which projects get funded. The bilateral nature of the funding has led to some misunderstandings on eligible costs between the province and the federal government at Infrastructure Canada. Finally, the ICIP seems to be unable to accommodate many large-scale projects within the overall funding categories. For example, we are currently pursuing a $90-million waste-water treatment facility, and at the current annual allocations, this project, should it get funded, would exhaust the entire annual green-infrastructure ICIP allocation for the province. Therefore, it's unlikely to get funded.

We would like to make a couple of recommendations when it comes to any federal funding. Specifically, we would like the government enhance the flexible and predictable models of infrastructure funding for municipalities. We were really glad to see another proposal to double the gas tax this year. As a regional centre, per-capita funding mightn't be the most progressive funding model—we sustain more infrastructure on a per-capita basis—but we would be happy to tolerate that minor inequity for the flexibility and predictability that the gas tax model affords a mature, responsible municipality like ours.

Also, we would like to see more highly targeted, large-scale funding for regional priority projects. I mentioned waste-water treatment. If this is, indeed, a priority for the federal government, we would like to see a clear funding path. We would gladly do our share to build reserves and would incur debt, if it is necessary, as long as we can get a commitment and a clear path forward from our federal and provincial partners.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Well done.

We are now going to move on to Mayor Porlier.

Mr. Mayor, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Réjean Porlier, Mayor, City of Sept-Îles]

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, ladies and gentlemen.

Thank you for having me once again.

This time I hope my remarks, which concern the dynamic use of Canada's territory, will lead to more discussion between us.

I am the mayor of Sept-Îles, an eastern Quebec city located near the centre of the province, approximately 1,000 kilometers from Montreal on one side and 1,000 kilometers from Blanc-Sablon on the other. Blanc-Sablon is near the home of my friend, Mr. Parsons, who just spoke.

Allow me to explain why I want to talk to you about dynamic use. There are many villages and towns between my home and Mr. Parsons', and their populations are slowly but surely declining. And you can understand why. Just imagine, it's 2021, and highway 138, the only road on the North Shore, still isn't finished. It's been promised to us for decades. Young people in those towns may be waiting for their yearly outing, but the transportation just isn't there. Do you think these young people, who are going away to study somewhere else, want to return to their villages? The answer, of course, is no. Those villages are increasingly isolated and in decline. Our infrastructure needs to be upgraded so we can use the territory in a dynamic rather than resilient manner, the way it is now, as we wait for our villages to shut down. How can we claim that a territory, this big, beautiful territory, that we're using in a resilient manner, is legitimate? I imagine the same is true in the so-called more remote areas across Canada.

The government is starting to consider establishing an economic corridor between Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador. For a long time, the talk was solely about isolated communities, and it was understood that wasn't good enough. Now the whole economic dynamic has been added to the picture. Everyone hopes the road is completed someday. We hope a government will have the vision to complete it, to open the economic corridor so people can come and go, which may encourage them to stay in their towns.

There's also talk about aviation. I think the territory is completely disorganized, and aviation in Quebec, generally speaking, is as well. Current ticket prices are prohibitive, and an enormous amount of work is being done to establish an aviation network. The Institut de recherche en économie contemporaine, IRÉC, conducted a study on the subject and concluded that we had to be innovative, that we had to take off our blinders and try to look at the situation from a different angle. That's more or less the message I wanted to convey to you today, that we should try to consider the dynamic use of our territory in a new way. According to the study findings, we should look to the cooperatives, where the people acquire ownership of the modes of transportation and therefore work to preserve them.

As you can see, the challenges are considerable. While we neglect these territories everywhere, we invest billions and billions of dollars to expand road networks in the major cities. I think that's counterproductive, particularly in view of the fight against climate change. As motor vehicle fleets significantly expand, we can't even complete a single road to the other side of our region, where our natural resources are exploited.

My message for you today is that we must not wait for crises like the current pandemic to happen. The way to restart the economy in times of crisis is often to focus on infrastructure. So let's at least meet the needs of the most remote communities.

Sept-Îles is a regional hub with a population of approximately 26,000 inhabitants. If none of the towns east of that hub are revitalized, we will all suffer the consequences. Sept-Îles is a hub, but it receives less and less support. Consequently, we need a vision.

I hope that, in the course of your proceedings, you will adopt a vision for the development of the Canadian territory as a whole because I think we must at least meet essential transportation needs, particularly in air and ground transportation. I hope you will pay attention to that.

There's also the communications component, which is increasingly under discussion. We obviously have to improve high-speed Internet access. Efforts are being made to do so, which will enable people to work remotely from virtually anywhere. We also have to make it easier for people to come and go so they no longer feel isolated, even if they live in very remote places.

That's my essential message today. I hope we can discuss it.

Thank you for your attention.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Well done.

We will move now to the Hamilton-Oshawa Port Authority.

Mr. Hamilton, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Ian Hamilton, President and Chief Executive Officer, Hamilton-Oshawa Port Authority]

Thank you very much for having me, and good afternoon, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.

It is my pleasure to be invited today to discuss the power of targeted infrastructure investments to build sustainable, resilient supply chains and deliver prosperity.

The Hamilton-Oshawa Port Authority or HOPA Ports, as we know ourselves now, is the largest integrated port network on the Great Lakes, with port and marine facilities in Hamilton, Oshawa and now Niagara. Our goals are to facilitate international trade, improve transportation efficiency in Ontario, reduce congestion and greenhouse gas emissions, and serve the Ontario industries that rely on the multimodal transportation network that we provide.

In Ontario, we don't necessarily think of ourselves as a marine province, but we have 10,000 kilometres of Great Lakes shoreline and access to a marine highway in the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence that connects the North American industrial heartland to any market around the world.

Our maritime character has an advantage of geography that perhaps we have come to take for granted, but in doing so we could miss out on its benefits, especially the economic prosperity that it can deliver.

At HOPA Ports we have been working to leverage a valuable combination of strategic location, transportation infrastructure and industrial land in Hamilton's and Oshawa's working waterfronts, successfully attracting more than $350 million in investment in the past decade, supporting 2,100 jobs on site, and handling goods worth $3 billion connected to 38,000 jobs in the province of Ontario. Throughout southern Ontario, by beginning to see these assets as part of an integrated network we can start to explore innovative ideas that serve our growing region.

We should be thinking of how to use marine highways to reduce congestion on our clogged highways, by consolidating truck traffic onto short-sea shipping alternatives or by staging construction materials for urban waterfront development projects elsewhere in the region and delivering these materials by barge on a just-in-time basis.

We need to ensure that we are continuing to foster a positive environment for manufacturing, food processing and construction materials—sectors that are among the most valuable economic engines for our region.

As we have seen in Hamilton and Oshawa, there is enormous demand for transportation-intensive industrial land for these types of businesses, and we're currently working to activate more valuable industrial land along the Welland Canal, specifically in Thorold, Welland and Port Colborne, to allow for the attraction of new industry and jobs in the region.

It is part of our mandate and responsibility, as Ontario's largest port authority, to facilitate trade in our region. We believe the best way to accomplish this is to begin to take a more regional perspective and to tap into Ontario's rich marine heritage to help deliver a prosperous future. One way to move forward on our mandate is to ensure responsible investment in infrastructure that has the greatest return for the Canadian economy.

We were immensely pleased to see the recent federal budget renew the national trade corridors fund, a highly successful and well-administered program. The NTCF has been a vehicle for delivering targeted economic stimulus through infrastructure. Now more than ever, the NTCF can be used to support cost-effective, energy-efficient supply chains that play a critical role in Canada's economic recovery.

In 2018, the predecessor Hamilton Port Authority received an investment of $17.7 million through the NTCF program. We matched that fund and more, and put in a total of $45 million. Since that time, that fund has actually been able to attract a further $50 million in third-party investment onto our property.

In looking ahead to the design and objectives of this round of the NTCF program, we would highlight the integrated nature of trade within the Great Lakes region.

We would encourage the renewed program to consider that the functions of the Great Lakes region are different from those of the coastal trade gateways. Canada-U.S. bilateral trade throughout the Great Lakes is valued at more than $6 trillion annually. Especially in southern Ontario, Canada's manufacturing heartland, imports of raw materials are essential for the downstream competitiveness of Canadian industries.

The GTHA is the fastest-growing region in North America, with a population due to surpass eight million. Meanwhile, the region suffers from some of North America's worst road congestion, costing an estimated $6 billion per year. We would encourage the NTCF program to emphasize increasing Canada-U.S. trade, including imports tied to domestic industrial supply chains such as those for manufacturing and construction, which will be central to economic recovery and employment.

There is a unique opportunity to reduce greenhouse gases and congestion resulting from truck transportation, through the development of short-sea shipping opportunities. Better use of the marine mode would reduce trucks on the provinces's highways, decrease road congestion, cut capital requirements for expanded roadways and decrease greenhouse gas emissions. Shipping goods by water is far more energy efficient and less costly than land-based modes. A single vessel of 30,000 tonnes of cargo can replace close to 1,000 trucks.

Investing in marine transportation in the Great Lakes will advance Canada's blue economy strategy, with the potential to spur growth across the board in fishing, marine transportation, shipbuilding, energy, tourism and recreation.

The expansion of trade capacity at Canada's Great Lakes ports is essential to the growth and competitiveness of the agri-food, construction and manufacturing sectors. In order to meet all these demands, we must begin making better use of our marine capacity. Doing so would represent a major step forward to delivering benefits for Canadian trade, environment and local economies.

At HOPA Ports, we are ready now to start making the investments Canada needs to emerge stronger from the pandemic. We have identified shovel-ready infrastructure improvements that would maximize immediate impact in our regional economies while also delivering long-term benefit to Canada's supply chains.

We look forward to working with you towards a more sustainable, resilient and prosperous Canada that makes the most of its maritime transportation infrastructure, and in particular, those on the Great Lakes.

Again, thank you very much for the opportunity to address the committee. I'd be pleased to answer any questions when they come up.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you, Mr. Hamilton. That was well done.

We're now going to move on to the Insurance Bureau of Canada, with Mr. Craig Stewart, vice-president of federal affairs.

Mr. Stewart, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Craig Stewart, Vice-President, Federal Affairs, Insurance Bureau of Canada]

Thank you, Honourable Chair.

Good afternoon and thank you, committee members, for the invitation today.

I coordinate work on disaster preparedness and climate change at the Insurance Bureau of Canada or IBC—your home, car and business insurers. As an industry, we are particularly interested in strengthening resilience among businesses and households in the face of the increasing impact of climate change in Canada.

Why is infrastructure important for climate resilience? Canada is warming at twice the rate of much of the rest of the world due to climate change. For insurers, this is a material financial threat. Canada’s insured losses due to severe weather have quadrupled, from $422 million annually before 2008 to $1.9 billion, on average, since. Our problem is your problem. In 2019, Lloyd’s of London left the Canadian commercial insurance market, due in part to these significant severe weather losses. Businesses like condominium boards and tourism operators couldn’t find affordable insurance after Lloyd’s left the market.

Climate resilience is defined as the ability of a community to absorb future stress from floods, windstorms or wildfires while continuing to function. Infrastructure such as stormwater system upgrades, flood diversion channels or natural features such as wetlands are key to introducing resilience.

The Government of Canada has taken some important steps to address this escalating climate risk. From funding resilience retrofits through the green and inclusive community buildings program, to partnering with us to develop a national high-risk flood insurance program, early work is under way.

Public Safety Canada is leading a national risk profile to assess which communities across Canada are most exposed to flood, wildfire and earthquake risk. Infrastructure Canada has launched a national infrastructure assessment, which considers how natural disasters such as floods and fires impact infrastructure. It also considers how to mitigate future climate risks through the deployment of defensive infrastructure, including where nature may play a role. In combination, these two efforts should provide the detail needed to prioritize future investments to lower Canadian risk.

Much more needs to be done. The investments announced are insufficient. In 2017, the government launched the $2-billion disaster mitigation and adaptation fund—DMAF—which was quickly overcommitted. Budget 2021 announced a $1.4-billion extension of that program over 11 years. That number is still inadequate to protect Canadian communities. To put that into context, we paid out more than $1.4 billion in losses from a 20-minute hailstorm in Calgary last June.

The Government of Canada is finally taking the future risks of climate change seriously. However, we are facing escalating climate risk right now. Climate adaptation deserves the same degree of all-hands-on-deck rigour to design the policies and programs that will actually protect Canadians today.

Here are our recommendations for your committee report.

First, Canada needs a national climate adaptation strategy that sets time-bound targets for protecting Canadians. For example, that strategy could target protecting 30% of high-risk Canadian homes and businesses from flooding by 2030. That strategy should centre on the national risk profile. The national infrastructure assessment should explicitly link to it and identify future programming, like an expanded DMAF and a resilient home retrofit program that addresses those goals for communities at risk.

Second, governments investments can’t do it all. Private capital is essential to building resilience, yet we spend a lot of time in this country debating how to price carbon and almost no time pricing climate risk. We lack the valuation framework and tools needed to price the resilience value of infrastructure and to convert this into revenue-generating financial instruments. Canada has now joined Australia and the U.K. in the Coalition for Climate Resilient Investment—CCRI—a public-private collaboration to develop the valuation frameworks needed to deploy private capital. Infrastructure Canada should be aggressively positioning this country to benefit from this work.

Finally, the Canada Infrastructure Bank should play a role in this policy development with CCRI. Currently, the CIB has not invested a dime on climate adaptation—and they won’t until resilience projects can earn revenue. They should engage in demonstration pilots that build systemic resilience in Canada.

In conclusion, we’re finally playing offence on climate change by aggressively lowering emissions. However, we also need to play defence to protect Canadians from the severe weather we are already experiencing. Targeted infrastructure investments from the public and private sectors must be foundational to our resilience game plan.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you, Mr. Stewart. You raised some great points.

To all of the witnesses, well done. On behalf of the committee, I very much appreciate the valuable time you've taken today to be with us on this very important subject matter.

With that, we will go to our first round of six minutes for each recognized party. We will start with the Conservative Party.

Mr. Scheer, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I want to echo what the chair said about the very interesting presentations by our witnesses today. We heard a lot of different aspects of Canada's infrastructure needs addressed by a very interesting group of witnesses.

I particularly liked the mention of the idea of these trade corridors. This was something that of course the previous Conservative government really championed with the Asia-Pacific corridor. Many communities throughout Canada were able to upgrade everything from roads to rail yards to port facilities in order to help deal with some of the logistics challenges that prevented Canadian companies from accessing Asian markets. That was a very successful corridor program. It's nice when you see those types of legacy projects continue and benefit diverse communities, from Newfoundland all the way to British Columbia.

I want to touch on that a little bit with the representatives from the port authorities in Corner Brook and Hamilton-Oshawa. Obviously, hard assets are a huge benefit to being able to expand our trading opportunities and export more. I think I heard the gentleman from Corner Brook talk about the ability to buy a crane. It's easy to understand how that benefits and enables the ability to expand operations. Sometimes, though, government rules and regulations get in the way of some of the expansion of some of the operations.

I want to ask a question specifically about cabotage and your view of the current rules relating to cabotage here in Canada and the ability for ships bringing goods to Canada to stop at multiple points of entry. We have two different ports here, two different parts of the country, and I'd love to hear your different perspectives on the way that rule affects your ability to grow and expand.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you, Mr. Scheer.

We'll start off with Mr. Hamilton. Then I'll move over to the mayor from Corner Brook.

Mr. Hamilton.

[Ian Hamilton]

Thanks very much.

I guess the answer is a bit like my daughter's profile: It's complicated. I think the opportunity with cabotage, obviously, is that part of it was originally designed to protect a domestic fleet and to protect a domestic shipbuilding industry. As a result of that, we've ended with a large shipping community in Canada that has really been geared up to serving the Canadian market. If you were to abandon the cabotage rules, then I think there would have to be some consideration towards how they can manage and how they can work with their workforces, being obligated to use existing union workforces.

I say all of that as a preface to my answer, because I think there would have to be some consideration for those domestic operators today if it were to be opened up. However, the opportunities to actually opening it up I think are quite large. You would bring in a lot more competitiveness and you'd bring in a lot more capacity for ships coming into the system. I think when you look at jurisdictions like Europe, where these cabotage rules don't exist, you see how much they use short-sea shipping and smaller vessels to transport goods and how effective it can be.

There is a real opportunity to it in creating more capacity and more competitiveness, but I will acknowledge, for all of our ship-owning friends in Canada, that there has to be some recognition of the impact it would have on their existing operations.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Mayor Parsons.

[Jim Parsons]

Thank you.

I believe Mr. Hamilton would have a lot more expertise in this regard. I sit on our port corporation board by virtue of my office as mayor.

We have an international container freight service here. In the past we have had a domestic shipper as well. Of course, with our mill we largely export to international markets. We have opportunities for our fisheries and fishing industry, of course, but we are somewhat limited by those rules.

Again, on the implications to the overall shipping industry, I think I'd defer to someone like Mr. Hamilton. From our perspective, it does limit somewhat what we can do and how we can support our local regional economy.

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

I'll try to very briefly get to our two mayors.

Like you, we get very frustrated when we hear stories of the billions of dollars that go lapsing in government programs or the fact that the Canadian Infrastructure Bank hasn't yet been able to complete a single project and it's supposed to be a signature government program. We've heard your recommendations, but I just want to give you one more opportunity to talk about what you're looking for in terms of flexibility for local areas.

What we've heard in previous meetings is that sometimes, when the criteria get set here in Ottawa, there are a lot of great projects that are getting filtered out because they don't quite fit in to what the government in Ottawa has set. What would you like to see in terms of flexibility to empower local decision-making?

[Jim Parsons]

Thank you.

As I mentioned, it's the flexibility. We've seen funding like the gas tax, which has been very helpful. Because we are a mature professional organization we have a lot of accountability and a lot of ability to decide what's best for our municipality. From bilateral funding like ICIP, we've actually seen more flexibility from Infrastructure Canada than we have through our provincial government. Sometimes there are disagreements about the eligible costs and things like that, and we get a little hung up.

As I mentioned also, the funding categories that are used sometimes limit how much can be done. Green infrastructure here in Newfoundland amounts to roughly $30 million a year in the federal contribution perspective. Our single project, a $90-million water treatment facility, would take up that entire allotment for a year. There's a need for flexibility at both the provincial level and at the municipal level. Municipalities are becoming more independent and more responsible, and I think we should be allowed to, as much as possible, set our own course.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Mayor Porlier, go ahead.

[Réjean Porlier]

I wholeheartedly agree with Mr. Parsons that most expenditures are incurred in the municipalities. We're on the ground, but it takes time and negotiation to get funding. The project has often started by the time funding is paid out. There should definitely be a way to simplify the process.

Allow me to add a comment on cabotage, which is underutilized in Quebec but would be a big help. Studies show that we would save a lot of money on road maintenance if we used cabotage more. We should introduce incentives to encourage the practice. Once established, it will become increasingly independent. We should really establish a cabotage tradition in Quebec.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you, Mayor Porlier. Thank you, Mayor Parsons, as well as Mr. Scheer.

We're now going to move on to the Liberal Party. We have Mr. Fillmore.

Mr. Fillmore, you're up for six minutes.

[Andy Fillmore, Liberal, Halifax, NS]

Thanks, Chair.

Thanks to the witnesses for giving us their time and expertise. There's a wonderful diversity of experience here this evening.

Mayor Parsons, I was glad to hear of the programs that you've been able to access in Corner Brook, and I hope that you'll continue to avail yourself of them. I was particularly glad to hear you give a shout-out to the CHCI program, and I hope that it lands well in your neck of the woods.

Mr. Stewart, on your definition of resiliency, thank you for putting that on the record with this committee, with resiliency being the ability of infrastructure to withstand future challenges from climate change and adapt to future risks. Thank you for that.

It's wonderful to hear your thoughts on the green and inclusive community building fund that we've released, and your thoughts on DMAF as well, and the need to continue paying attention to disaster mitigation. Thank you for that.

I would like to direct my question, however, to Mr. Hamilton.

Mr. Hamilton, I'm sure the port community is actually quite small in Canada. You've probably visited the Halifax port and you know that we, like the HOPA ports, are in urban areas. When a truck has to leave the port, it has to rumble through residential neighbourhoods, the central business district, main streets, shopping districts and so forth. I was very glad to hear you talking about the interest in consolidating loads and reducing the number of trucks, which is a positive in so many ways, in terms of GHG reductions and quality of life in the downtown. It even comes down to damage to the historic heritage buildings that we have in our downtown, and that may be the same where you are as well.

I wonder if you could tell us a little bit more about the plans you have to reduce truck traffic, the way the trade corridors fund or other funds might help you, and what you're looking for there, if you would.

Thank you.

[Ian Hamilton]

There are a number of ways to do it. Working with your individual municipalities to ensure the following of the municipal truck routes is an essential item. I think Montreal is doing it, we're doing it and Vancouver is doing it. We were using RFID technology to track trucks to see where they were actually routed through the downtown corridors and to try to educate and ensure that the trucks were following the prescribed routes. That's the obvious thing.

For the bigger picture, what we're really excited about is the Canadian centre on transportation data, and the open data and the work that's currently going on between goods moved, transparency and freight visibility. We believe there hasn't been enough work done in Canada to create the databases of information so that we can truly understand where the capacity exists. It can be capacity in a system, as in the Great Lakes on the marine side of it, but it could also be capacity in terms of space inside of a truck and how we work to maximize utilization of that space and reduce the volumes. I know it's right in its infancy, but we really think the CCTD is a great initiative.

Port authorities across the country can really help in collecting and helping to do the analytics on that data, with a goal to try to maximize the utilization of the existing capacity, which would ultimately reduce the truck volumes. By using data to find more sustainable supply chains, we believe there are opportunities to create short-sea shipping services that could take trucks off the most congested parts of the road.

Data is the new currency. Canada has worked very much in silos, based on the different modes. It's time now to integrate those silos and build a database that allows us to look at transportation in terms of integration between the modes rather than three individual silos. There are a couple of hard initiatives, but the data work that's being done is phenomenal.

[Andy Fillmore, Liberal, Halifax, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Hamilton.

To hear you talk about data, you remind me very much of the CEO of the Halifax Port Authority, Captain Allan Gray, who's very much focused on data and bringing a smart view to our port operation here as well.

If there's a moment left, I wonder if I might change the topic and ask you about greening the energy used in the ships themselves. Canada has a hydrogen strategy that's emerging. Is there any discussion at all in HOPA about facilitating a move to greener fuels?

[Ian Hamilton]

Last year, in Hamilton, we actually fuelled the first LNG vessel that was ever fuelled on the Great Lakes. We think hydrogen is an absolutely fantastic technology, although it's just not ready for the market yet.

As to anything we can do, we're offering incentives in terms of access to our docks, as well as free storage space—in that situation—for the LNG before it was loaded onto the vessels. We're doing whatever we can to try to encourage the shipping line to use greener technologies. I think it's Desgagnés that has moved a lot of its vessels to LNG.

LNG arguably might only be a stop gap until a better technology like hydrogen comes to commercial use, but we believe the 30% reduction that LNG can provide is a great step forward, even if it might not be the crème de la crème that will arrive to us in the future.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you, Mr. Hamilton, and thank you, Mr. Fillmore.

We're now going to move on to Mr. Barsalou-Duval from the Bloc Québécois.

Mr. Barsalou-Duval, you have the floor for six minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Porlier, earlier in your opening remarks, you cited the consequences for some towns of not being connected by road. When young people go away to study, many of them never return.

Knowing that, why do you think highway 138 has never been finished?