Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I thank my colleagues for attending.
It's my turn to speak on why I supported the request that the committee hold a meeting today to discuss the comments of the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, who claimed that the government would no longer invest a penny in road projects. I was, obviously, very surprised to hear that. It didn't strike me as responsible government policy. It sounded to me more like the militant vision of someone with a certain ideology who wanted to utter a shock phrase to impress listeners. But when you're in government, you're supposed to be responsible. You're supposed to make decisions that are realistic for the community as a whole, decisions that can be applied concretely.
Why are such comments worrying? It's all well and good to say that we won't invest a penny more in road transport, but the reality is that the road network isn't finished yet. As many have said, Canada is a big place. In Quebec, for example in Nord-du-Québec or eastern Quebec, many towns and villages are still not connected by roads. Hearing that the government won't invest a penny in roads must have made some people's hair stand on end. When you live in a place where there's no road connecting you to another community and you're told that the government won't invest another penny in road projects, you think that your village will never be connected to another by a road.
For example, on the Côte-Nord, there's a project to extend Route 138 to connect villages that still aren't connected. This is one of the top priorities for Côte-Nord residents. If we tell them they'll never get a road, they're going to be disappointed, and understandably so.
Another important project for residents of the Côte-Nord is the construction of a bridge over the Saguenay River, which would mean that people would no longer need to take the ferry to get to their region. In summer, traffic jams can be monstrous. When you want to get to the Côte-Nord, you could be waiting for hours before you can catch the ferry. Since there's no bridge, many people want to take the ferry, but it has limited capacity. So people have to wait.
Here in the Outaouais region, all of Highway 50 isn't even a two-lane highway yet. They say it's a highway, but in fact it's a two-lane road. It can even be dangerous under certain circumstances. For example, in winter, when visibility is poor, you can get into a head-on collision, as vehicles drive very close to oncoming traffic. What's more, if someone slows traffic down, or if there's an accident, all the downstream vehicles are blocked. So there's a safety issue too.
I've talked about two or three road projects, but I'm sure there are others that are relevant or important for Quebec's future.
If, in its vision, the government had announced that road projects were not its priority since the road infrastructure is well developed, and that it felt it should instead relieve congestion on roads and road networks by giving priority to public transit projects, that might have been a responsible policy that we could expect from a government. In any case, I think it's a vision we should have, especially insofar as we want to reduce the effects of climate change and curb urban sprawl. I think urban sprawl is an important issue. We have to make sure we preserve our farmland and wetlands. So it's a vision that could have been intelligent if, based on the same principle or the same values, it had been expressed in a more thoughtful way.
The reason why I think it's important for our committee to receive the minister is that we need to know whether this was simply thoughtless talk from someone who hadn't thought things through and tried a nice formula to impress the gallery, or whether it's the government's real policy, in which case it would be more worrying.
That's why it would be important for other ministers to come and talk to us about it. Generally speaking, it's not just the Minister of the Environment and Climate Change who invests in these projects. There's also the Minister of Transport and the Minister of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities. Their appearance would be relevant to explain the government's vision to us, and how it will be implemented by their departments.
It will certainly be interesting to find out where the government is or is not headed, but the good news is that it doesn't really matter, since it's not usually Ottawa that decides on road projects. Municipality roads are funded by the cities. Quebec authorizes most projects throughout Quebec, whether major highway links or major infrastructure projects; it finances them and ultimately decides. Does Ottawa have a role to play? Sometimes, some projects are financed in part by Ottawa, but that's first and foremost the responsibility of Quebec and the municipalities. If Ottawa decided to stop funding these projects, in a pinch we could still survive this, even if it might not be desirable.
Everyone in the regions pays taxes to the federal government. Anyone who lives in a region far from the major centres and who has any hope of seeing a road go to their corner of the world would be a little disappointed to see that the federal government, to whom they pay taxes, intends to let them down and not contribute to improving their connection to the road network.
Of course, I think this is irresponsible talk on the part of the minister and it's important that he come and explain himself.
Perhaps what explains the minister's comments is that the Liberals don't have many MPs in the regions. When you look at the electoral map, you can see that very quickly. It might be in their interest to visit these people more often to better understand their reality.
Instead of debating for hours on what the minister said or speculating on what he might have meant and what that might suggest about the government's position, I think the best thing to do would be to look at the motion before the committee and come up with something concrete. I understand that the Conservatives' idea is to put on a show. Their motion is justified, in that it's important for the minister to come and speak. However, before convening half the cabinet, it would be a good idea simply to reframe the debate. Then we'll see if we need to go further and do a big in-depth study on the subject.
I'd simply propose amending the member's motion so that we hold a single meeting. Obviously, we would invite the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, the Minister of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities and the Minister of Transport.
Madam Clerk, I'm going to state my proposed amendment more clearly. Generally speaking, here's how I would amend Mr. Strahl's motion.
I would keep the beginning of the motion, the words “The committee undertake”, but instead of having “a study of no less than six meetings”, it would be “one meeting”. The sentence would continue by saying “on infrastructure in Canada, and invite the following witnesses to appear before the committee”, but I would add “within 30 days of the adoption of this motion”.
In point (a), we'd keep the reference to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, but remove the rest of the sentence.
In point (b), again we could keep the mention of the Minister of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities, but delete the rest of the sentence.
This would be the same in point (c), regarding the Minister of Transport; we'd remove the rest of the sentence.
Then I would remove points (d), (e) and (f), as well as the final paragraph, about time and resources. In fact, if we only have one meeting, we won't need to make any major changes to the committee's schedule or to the resources required of the House.
I hope that the amendment I am proposing is clear and that the members of the committee will accept it. It would allow us to receive the minister and the appropriate government spokespersons to explain their real position to us. That way everyone will be reassured if they happen to have a more reasonable position than what the Conservatives are telling us.