Thank you for inviting me to present.
I want to start by acknowledging the indigenous territory, Treaty 6 and homeland of the Métis, where I am situated today.
I've been a public transportation user and researcher, and I'm currently residing in Saskatchewan in a community with no access to public transportation since the shuttering of STC. I was asked by this committee to speak about intercity transportation.
I'd like to start by saying it's important that we consider intercity transportation as beyond cities—that is, inter-regional or intercommunity—because if we don't do this, there will be a loss in citizen's voices from people living in rural and remote locations, which is some 20% to 30% of the population, depending on where you live. Transportation systems need to be inclusive and citizen-led.
What do I mean by this?
When public systems are replaced by private ones, citizens are replaced by “consumers”. I'm concerned that a policy focus on urban centres and private transportation speaks to a loss of citizen voices and participation. The absence of a framing policy around all citizens creates a risk that some—i.e. citizens in rural areas, the elderly, indigenous, those with mobility issues, etc.—become second-class citizens.
This is not how Canada was built. Our communities are interconnected. The rural supports the urban and the urban supports the rural. That's how Canada was structured. Therefore, the starting point needs to be more than intercity.
Secondly, in developing transportation policy, Canada needs to consider not only rural and remote and how transportation to and from these areas is structured and sustained, but also how populations are not homogenous.
There are two examples of this. One is the The Highway of Tears in northern British Columbia. It is a location that until recently was not serviced by public transportation and is an area of a high number of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls. Another example is citizens with mobility issues.
The Highway of Tears was notorious, particularly for indigenous women hitchhiking, because no bus service existed until recently. As someone now living north of Prince Albert, I'm grossly aware of how northern Saskatchewan is quietly on its way to becoming another highway of tears. Call for justice 4.8 in the missing and murdered indigenous women and girls report as well as calls for safe resource allocation in the TRC report both speak to the need to address these.
The second class of citizens without access to transportation is people with mobility issues, like my friend Terri Sleeva. Terri is in a wheelchair and has not had bus access since the end of STC. Without access, she is part of a “mobility underclass”, and her transportation disadvantage limits her ability to work, to access basic services and to contribute to society. It took Terri two years of fighting a legal case with Transport Canada until she was finally awarded access on a private carrier in Saskatchewan.
Lack of transportation in these examples and more means a lack of safety and a lack of participation in society. Transportation needs to be about more than those who can pay. It has to ensure that we have democratic decision-making, equitable outcomes, opportunities and community benefits. This includes access to health care before, after and during a pandemic.
Mobility shapes how we live our lives. If, for example, citizens in the city have access to subsidies on public transit of up to 60%, why can't the same rights exist for people in rural and remote locations of Canada?
The removal of Greyhound demonstrates that transportation needs to be public and not designed on economics only. Greyhound stopped operating because it was no longer profitable for it to do so. Social, health, environmental and other factors need to be considered in the policy. They can be designed, monitored and evaluated with a public lens to equality, safety and accessibility.
An example of this would be to look at the STC scorecard. When STC was shuttered, the public was told that private industry would take over. That hasn't happened. Only one still operates in Saskatchewan, and only on the routes that are profitable. Although a special interest group might step forward to meet the needs of people in the community, that only creates gaps for people who aren't part of that special needs group.
Mobility rights are human rights. Canada signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, but with current barriers to movement, these freedoms cannot be realized.
Finally, I conclude with key recommendations from our study, “Here Today, Gone Tomorrow”. These include further research, community planning on public transportation, mobility with attention to diversity of users and vulnerable groups and looking at factors beyond economic indicators.
Thank you.