Transport Committee on Nov. 19th, 2020

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

Sorry, Minister, the question was—

[Catherine McKenna, Liberal, Ottawa Centre, ON]

—so you want to have the bank doing something different, which is actually leveraging the private sector. The CRTC is independent, so they—

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

Just in the interest of time, Minister—

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you, Minister.

Mr. Bachrach.

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

The question was, which minister is accountable for delivering the outcomes that you've promised around rural broadband? Is there a minister who is accountable for that? Which minister is the lead?

[Catherine McKenna, Liberal, Ottawa Centre, ON]

All the ministers who have within their portfolio aspects of broadband are accountable, and ultimately our government is accountable. Canadians will hold us accountable. Let me tell you that we have heard from Canadians on how important investment in broadband is. That is why we're accelerating our investments in broadband. That's why we've increased the amount of money being invested in broadband. That's why the bank is providing $2 billion in funds. As I say, they are looking at over 750,000 homes, and I'm going to hold them accountable on that. We need to get that done quickly.

I should point out, for any Canadians who might be watching, that up to $150 million of the funds under the recently announced universal broadband fund will be available immediately, right now, for rapid response for projects that can be completed in the 2020-21 build season.

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

The challenge is that with no single minister accountable, it's difficult to hold the government accountable for the outcomes it has promised.

I want to move on, Minister, to one more question around the electric buses. In talking to the electric bus sector, one of the key challenges in delivering the 5,000-bus target is the lack of a funding stream specifically for cities to fund feasibility studies to ensure that they are using and implementing the technology effectively. Are you aware of this concern? If so, how is your government planning to address it?

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you, Mr. Bachrach.

Be quick, Minister McKenna.

[Catherine McKenna, Liberal, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Thank you very much. I've learned a lot, actually, about electric buses and how it's not just the buses you need to be investing in but also the charging infrastructure. I have heard about the need for feasibility studies. There are some opportunities through the FCM, but this is something we need to look at. Of course we need to be supporting municipalities so that they have the capacity to do what we committed to do with them, which is 5,000 electric buses.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you, Minister McKenna, and thank you, Mr. Bachrach.

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

Thank you, Minister.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

We'll now move to five minutes.

I believe the next five-minute frame will be split between Mr. Kram and Mr. Shipley.

Mr. Kram, you have the floor.

[Michael Kram, Conservative, Regina—Wascana, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, I will be splitting my time today with my colleague Mr. Shipley.

Thank you, Minister McKenna, for joining us today at the committee.

Two months ago, Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe sent a letter to Prime Minister Trudeau outlining some of my province's concerns with the federal government. I would like to follow up on one of those issues today.

In terms of infrastructure, only three municipal projects in Saskatchewan have been given funding by your government since March 1. Can you tell us if this number is still accurate?

[Catherine McKenna, Liberal, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Well, I mean, it's good to look over at my deputy. Once again, with our infrastructure program it's critical that we actually receive projects from the province. That's how our program works. They have to hit my desk. Then we have to do a review of the projects. We've been encouraging Saskatchewan and working with them to have more projects.

My deputy is right here. She can speak to the number of projects we've approved and provide an answer to the question.

[Kelly Gillis, Deputy Minister, Infrastructure and Communities, Office of Infrastructure of Canada]

To date we have approved 375 projects in Saskatchewan: 25 under the IBA; five under disaster mitigation and adaptation; and one under the smart cities challenge. Also, from budget 2016, under the public transit and infrastructure fund, there were 14. Under clean water and waste water, there were 110; innovation for climate change, eight; and asset management, 106.

So a number of projects, valued at $716 million, have been funded and approved for your province.

[Michael Kram, Conservative, Regina—Wascana, SK]

All right, then. Thank you.

As I said, I will be sharing my time with my colleague Mr. Shipley. I don't want to eat into his time, so I will hand it over to him.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Mr. Shipley.

[Doug Shipley, Conservative, Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister, for being here today.

Minister, earlier today you mentioned that the Infrastructure Bank is an independent and arm’s-length agency. If this is accurate, how is that you, the minister, could be present when the bank announced a new growth plan filled with politically motivated projects?

[Catherine McKenna, Liberal, Ottawa Centre, ON]

The Canada Infrastructure Bank is independent, but our government sets the overarching priorities for the bank. They're extremely broad priorities.

When you look at their growth plan, they developed a plan that reflected those priorities. I think it's to be applauded that Michael Sabia, the new chair, works with the board and the staff at the bank to look at what areas would make a difference in the shorter term.

The bank has overarching priorities, including public transit, transmission lines and other things that it's working on, but it asked, “What can we do in the shorter term that will create jobs now that will also make a big difference in the pandemic?” Let's just talk about broadband, the importance of connecting Canadians to broadband.

They are committing now to connect, in the shorter term, 750,000 homes and businesses to broadband. I think that's an example of them looking at opportunities, which I hope you would agree are really important. I know that I hear from Canadians about how important it is to be investing in broadband.

Also, it's great to see that the first project actually was an Albertan project, the bank working with Premier Kenney to do a project that's going to make a real difference to irrigation. This is about farmers. This is about ranchers. This is about the ag tech sector. It's about Canadian exports. I certainly applaud this.

I think we have to be more ambitious. We have to invest more in infrastructure, and we need to be doing it while working hand in hand with the private sector.

[Doug Shipley, Conservative, Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON]

Thank you, Minister.

I have one final question on the Infrastructure Bank.

Pre-pandemic, the bank allocated billions of dollars and completed no projects. Now you have reannounced this bank with a more political mandate. Once again, it seems that you were just expecting us to trust you on this.

Why should we trust you to complete in the future what you couldn't complete in the past?

[Catherine McKenna, Liberal, Ottawa Centre, ON]

I'm not entirely sure what that means, but look, the Infrastructure Bank is doing really good work. As I said, it announced a project that I think Premier Kenney was extremely pleased with. It will make a real difference when it comes to irrigation in Alberta.

When you look at the REM project in Montreal, that's an incredible project. I hear from Montrealers. They're so excited to see that it's actually being built and creating thousands of jobs.

The Infrastructure Bank's role is actually looking at where there are opportunities for investment, where they can attract the private sector on projects and how they do that. I have great faith in Michael Sabia. The new CEO of the bank, Ehren Cory, comes from Infrastructure Ontario, where he had a lot of experience leveraging the private sector and looking at innovative financing tools.

I think there's a huge opportunity, and it's great to see, as I say, interest by Conservative premiers in actually moving forward and getting more infrastructure built.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you, Minister McKenna; and thank you, Mr. Kram and Mr. Shipley.

We'll now go, for our final five minutes, to Mr. Fillmore.

Mr. Fillmore, the floor is yours.

[Andy Fillmore, Liberal, Halifax, NS]

Minister, thanks for being here. It's wonderful to have you here to talk with us about the infrastructure program.

I want to ask you broadly about the the impacts of the infrastructure program that you are managing at the moment, under two headings. The first is the impact on climate change, on severe weather and on GHG reductions, the impact on our ability to reach our 2050 net-zero targets. We'll go there first.

Secondarily, if we have time, I'd like to ask you about the economic benefits in communities across the country.

Perhaps you could start with the environmental, climate and carbon impacts.

[Catherine McKenna, Liberal, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Thank you very much.

I have a great parliamentary secretary who cares greatly about climate change, who actually brought in a private member's bill, which is hard to get passed, but it passed in the House, setting up a climate lens. Climate change really is critically important, as we think of the infrastructure we build.

It's interesting because when you look at the opportunities, you see that I made an announcement about a net-zero pool, the Drayton Valley pool. The the amount of excitement about that pool is huge. It's just an example of how we can make a real difference. That investment does not seem like a big deal, but for that community, it's actually using heating from the local arena for the pool. That's just smart.

I've seen these investments across the country that are reducing emissions, which is critically important. These investments include electric buses; investments in renewable energy and in district heating, something I know you care greatly about; investments in active transportation and linking that to public transportation, such as thinking about cycling as a way that people can get to and from work, which we often haven't thought of like that, but as just being a pastime.

We are also building resilience, because unfortunately climate change is already having a huge impact on communities. So, as I say, the investment we made in Brampton under our disaster mitigation and adaptation fund is really critically important.

I think there are many other opportunities. As we look to move forward, what I would like to see are more opportunities directly with cities and municipalities, big and small, across the country. We have seen leadership from municipalities on climate change in every province and territory across the country. It is estimated that 40% of emissions are within the control of municipalities, so we certainly need to be enabling them to make the decisions that are going to really help reduce emissions and ensure that there is cleaner air and cleaner water in their communities, and also a better quality of life for people.

When you look at the impacts of having better public transit or of having district heating or more cycling paths or more access to nature—we haven't talked a lot about natural infrastructure—you see that makes a real, practical difference in people's lives, while creating good union jobs. I have to emphasize this. I think there is just so much opportunity, as we are trying to build Canada up, and also building our way out of this pandemic, in making sure that we're making investments that are creating good union jobs right now.

I hear from unions across the country. I have to give a shout-out to all the constructions workers who have been working hard throughout this pandemic to keep that sector open and get things built in a safe way.

[Andy Fillmore, Liberal, Halifax, NS]

Do we have another minute or two, Chair?