Evidence of meeting #13 for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was rail.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
President and Chief Executive Officer, Railway Association of Canada
I will just echo what Mr. Dagenais said. The railway sector is finding it more and more difficult to attract people to come into the railway sector because it is a 24-7 environment. It can be a very harsh environment, but it can also be very rewarding. The railways provide a very rewarding career opportunity, so I think what we need to do as an industry, which we have started doing, is to explain and promote the benefits of working in the railway sector so that people understand what it really means and the opportunities they would have to build a successful career.
We're doubling our efforts on career awareness, career promotion because we need to. We need to attract more people into our industry as well.
Conservative
President and Chief Executive Officer, Western Canadian Shippers' Coalition
Our members are struggling just like everybody else, depending on location or where they are. If they're in smaller communities, and that is one of the primary sources, it's perhaps a bit easier, but when you look at some of the other areas, you are competing with several other industries out there and I think everybody already touched upon it. Some of it is what I would call 9 to 5 work where you have a normal work/life balance, and yet a lot of it is going to be on shifts. If you are doing shift work, it's much more difficult, especially if you are away from home, the whole bit. Everybody right now is experiencing it.
The question is how do we move forward and what do we do to move forward? Do we look at other policies that we have in place as far as immigration goes and all that sort of thing to help bring more people into Canada to help backfill the vacancies that we currently have?
Conservative
Marilyn Gladu Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
All right.
Ms. Hardy, do you have any comment on this?
Vice-President, Sales and Marketing, Grain and Fertilizers, Canadian Pacific Railway
Yes. Thank you for the question.
It's definitely a very hot employment market right now. We have managed to maintain our staffing levels at essentially the same level as we did a year ago. We have a very aggressive hiring plan this year.
Some of the issues are that we are hiring in a lot of small communities. Because the cost of living can be very high in some of those small communities, we're taking steps like building accommodations in some small communities to house crews that we would be hiring in the area. We're taking pretty significant steps to make sure that we are able to hire into the vacancies that we have.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Peter Schiefke
Thank you very much, Ms. Gladu.
Thank you very much, Ms. Hardy, for that response.
Our final round of questioning goes to Ms. Koutrakis.
The floor is yours. You have five minutes.
Liberal
Annie Koutrakis Liberal Vimy, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I thank all the witnesses for their fine contribution to our discussion this afternoon.
I will address Mr. Rodgers or Ms. Kuzeljevich first.
What countries are most successful in terms of freight transportation? What are the keys to their success that Canada could learn from?
Executive Director, Canadian International Freight Forwarders Association
That's a very interesting question. Thanks for raising that.
Countries around the world are all struggling to a significant extent. North America and Europe are struggling in many different areas.
I would say that Asia has the best supply chains overall. It's due to the fact that they move much more quickly on infrastructure requirements and needs overall. They have significant efficiency in their port operations. For the most part, they control most of the world's exports. They are in control, whereas the rest of the world is relying on them to get the product to them.
That would be my answer to that question.
Liberal
Annie Koutrakis Liberal Vimy, QC
Do you think that regulations may impede our efficiency, compared to China's regulations, or does it not have anything to do with that?
Executive Director, Canadian International Freight Forwarders Association
Absolutely. We talked about that in really getting down to the infrastructure.
I'm going to back up on that a bit. In infrastructure, we have the national trade corridors fund, but what is the national trade strategy in order to spend that money? We need a long-term strategy for where that money will be invested. We shouldn't be going through people bidding for new projects. We should know what they are.
Our infrastructure has been discussed on this panel by many different individuals. I'd say it's fragile at best, and it's broken when anything disrupts it. We've had significant disruption over the past two years.
Liberal
Annie Koutrakis Liberal Vimy, QC
Thank you.
My final question is for Mr. Dagenais.
I'm happy to see you again, this time on Zoom.
What changes could be made to the governance of Canada's ports to foster better performance and better relations with the surrounding communities?
Vice-President, Port Performance and Sustainable Development, Montreal Port Authority
Thank you for your question.
If you take a moment to look at the market and what works well for others internationally, you notice something right away. Just as the Internet works using networks, ports that work using networks are better organized in countries where it's allowed and in countries where strategic alliances can be forged based on complementarity, and especially on synergy.
If you were looking to make improvements, I feel that greater flexibility in this regard could certainly help loosen things up and make the Canadian port system more resilient.
Liberal
Annie Koutrakis Liberal Vimy, QC
How can we better compete with U.S. ports? Could we be a little more competitive?
Vice-President, Port Performance and Sustainable Development, Montreal Port Authority
Absolutely.
Naturally, the U.S. federal government is investing heavily in its port facilities, particularly to increase their capacity. This past weekend, we learned that $1.5 billion would be made available for rail service. Our country was built on a rail network, so we already have infrastructure in place. We already have the levers at our disposal to get the job done and meet the needs of Canadian importers' and exporters' supply chains.
I'm going to rewind a little to tell you that it seems to me that making the entire supply chain visible and accessible could be an avenue worth exploring. It would probably put us ahead of our competitors, including the U.S. ports.
Liberal
Annie Koutrakis Liberal Vimy, QC
Okay. Thank you very much.
This is a question for anyone.
What, in your view, are the biggest bottlenecks that impede the efficient movement of freight?
Vice-President, Port Performance and Sustainable Development, Montreal Port Authority
I'd say, to bounce back on what I just commented on, disjointed supply chains, folks who are working for their own little piece of the pie. If they don't see a whole, if they don't see it in its entirety from origin to destination, I think we're losing some of that on efficiency.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Western Canadian Shippers' Coalition
I think that, in looking around, if we have a potential problem like we did last year in B.C., not having other options available at your fingertips is a huge problem right now.
You have a few major port destinations that dominate, and not having other contingencies in place, we found, can really hamstring the Canadian economy. Those are things we need to look at in the future.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Peter Schiefke
Thank you very much, Ms. Koutrakis.
Thank you very much, Monsieur Montpetit.
Colleagues, thanks for your great questions today.
I'd like to take this opportunity on behalf of this committee to thank our witnesses for your testimony and your time today. It's been very helpful.
I'd like to ask all of our witnesses one last thing. If you have any additional information you'd like to share with us or follow-ups to the responses you've provided, by all means do send those our way. We're going to make sure that our analysts include them in the information they review while putting together the final report.
I also had a request by Ms. Gladu to ask and encourage all of you to hire any Ukrainian visitors. We're not formally calling them “refugees” at this point, but visitors. They are coming to Canada and they are looking for employment.
With that, I want to thank you all once again and adjourn the meeting.