Transport Committee on Feb. 28th, 2022

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

Can I sneak in one more question, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

You have 20 seconds, Mr. Bachrach.

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

Perfect. That's lot of time.

Can you confirm for the committee that the Gordie Howe International Bridge is still on track for completion in 2024?

[Kelly Gillis]

The private partner is still working towards the 2024 completion, yes.

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

Thank you very much, Ms. Gillis.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Mr. Bachrach.

Now it is time for Mr. Muys, who will have the floor for five minutes.

[Dan Muys, Conservative, Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON]

Thank you.

Let me just pick up a couple of threads from the earlier conversation. My colleague asked about the green infrastructure fund and community groups and organizations that are waiting for an answer on that. As well, Mr. Bachrach spoke about applications through the universal broadband fund that the minister spoke about specifically in his community. I know there are many in my constituency as well.

These are urgent projects, and the need is very real. What is the holdup? Is there something that can be done to expedite that? The answer seems to be that it's coming, but can you be more specific than that?

[Kelly Gillis]

The question about the universal broadband program is for our colleague department, Innovation, Science and Economic Development, although we do fund broadband through the integrated bilateral agreements and have funded approximately two dozen projects across the country for broadband. So those are advancing, and we do have a 60-day business turnaround time for our integrated bilateral agreements, and we have now advanced to having about 4,700 projects under the integrated bilateral agreements, for just over $20 billion.

The green and inclusive community buildings program was launched just last year, but during an election period we do not advance anything as we do not have a government to approve projects. It is extremely relevant across the country, and we have hundreds of project applications before us, on which decisions showing the various project approvals will be made imminently.

[Dan Muys, Conservative, Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON]

Thank you. I'll look forward to those.

One of the things that have been concerning in the pandemic that I know everyone has thought a lot about is the rise in mental health issues, and one thing that's helpful in addressing mental wellness is recreational facilities. I recall back in the early 2010s there was a federal program that made some infrastructure investments in recreation—in things like conservation trails, conservation areas and hockey rinks. I know in my own constituency that was the case, and I think there was tremendous value from investment there. I'm wondering whether the department has any plans to resurrect that or whether that falls within other programs currently under the bailiwick of the department.

[Kelly Gillis]

Yes, if I look at the integrated bilateral agreements, I see there is the community, culture and recreation stream of $2 billion that provinces and territories can avail themselves of. Certainly you just mentioned the green and inclusive buildings program, but also we've recently launched—it's been mentioned here—a $400-million active transportation program, which can fund walking trails, bike trails and footbridges to allow for outdoor use and active transportation for people to deal with health and mental wellness.

I'd also point to a program that we launched called the Canada healthy communities initiative, for $31 million. It was, again, a pandemic-related program that is about making small investments in communities for healthy communities. That was another area that can get at things like pop-up bike lanes and ways to make our communities healthy as we try to get outside or do different things while we're living in a COVID environment.

[Dan Muys, Conservative, Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Chair, how much time is left?

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

You have two minutes left, Mr. Muys.

[Dan Muys, Conservative, Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON]

Okay, there's time for another question, then.

One thing that the Ontario government is investing a lot in in southern Ontario is its highway infrastructure. Particularly in proximity to me, the 401 and 403 are important trade corridors and among the busiest highways in the world.

I recall a lot of federal and provincial co-operation during the great recession on highway infrastructure projects to make improvements to highways and rehabilitate bridges—that happened around me—and I'm wondering whether there are similar initiatives amongst those 10,000 projects that we heard about.

[Kelly Gillis]

When we look at trade corridors, we see there is a program at Transportation Canada called the national trade corridors program that has invested in a number of different, really important pieces of infrastructure that deal with trade and transportation. When we look at some of our urban highways we see that we've had the building Canada fund, which historically funded a number of different investments in that area.

In our more recent programming here at Infrastructure Canada, we're funding more public transportation to deal with some of the congestion and mobility issues that we need in our communities rather than urban highways.

If we look at some of our rural areas, though, we see of course that this is eligible under our rural and northern fund, under the integrated bilateral agreements. As well, in any community, under the gas tax or the Canada community-building fund, roads are eligible.

Those would be some of the programs I would point to for those types of investments.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Ms. Gillis. Thank you very much, Mr. Muys.

We now turn the floor over to Mr. Badawey for two and a half minutes.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I have a quick question to members of the team. As you may recognize, the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence municipalities continue to move forward with a great deal of economic, environmental and cultural infrastructure work. Some of that work includes dockage and wharfage along the Welland Canal to strengthen multimodal trade corridors, water, wastewater including mitigating combined sewer flows, stormwater management, mitigating eroding shorelines, and all of this based on natural disasters, fluctuating water levels and 100-year storms now occurring within five-year increments. Finally, there are investments in strengthening the Great Lakes cruise industry, as well as ensuring cleaner beaches that at times, as you know, experience postings due to high E. coli counts.

Can you speak to what the department is doing to leverage investments in our local-level communities that are working to ensure they become more resilient?

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[Kelly Gillis]

When we think about resiliency and adaptation, this has been raised as a really important area of opportunity. We have been working on some of the upstream work with communities and researchers such as through codes and standards with the National Research Council, with the Standards Council of Canada, as well as with really important investments through our disaster mitigation and adaptation program. Through this we have funded 69 projects worth almost $2 billion. We have launched a small stream and a large stream—they closed just before the holidays and we're doing the evaluation of them now—which will be important investments in resiliency across the country.

As we look at some of the risks they are facing, collaboration with communities in these important investments is important work going forward. As the minister said, it's a priority for him and an active part of how he's looking at the investments that are needed within the country going forward.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Mr. Badawey and Ms. Gillis.

I thank the witnesses very much for their presence today and for their contribution.

Thank you, colleagues, for your interventions today.

That ends the proceedings for today.

This committee is now adjourned.