Transport Committee on March 28th, 2023

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses here with us today.

My first question will be for Mayor Pond.

It seems like I missed a really great visit, Mayor, and I'm really sorry that I wasn't able to come out your way, but I commit to coming out and visiting you. I hope it will be sooner rather than later.

I'd like to hear your view on whether you would like to see governance changes in how ports operate. I'd like to hear your view as a smaller community with a large port. Do you have any thoughts about changes in Bill C-33 that would require consultative bodies to be set up by port authorities for neighbouring communities, indigenous groups, etc.?

[Herbert Pond]

Thank you very much. You're welcome any time. We'll roll out the red carpet just for you.

I'm supportive of the changes I've seen, at least most recently. Adding a second appointment from the local communities is worthwhile. We appreciate that once they're appointed they become full members of the board, and they're not reporting back to those municipalities. At least they come with a community perspective, and that can be very helpful.

The consultative bodies you mentioned are also very worthwhile. I question whether, in a small municipality like Prince Rupert, some of them might be combined. I don't know. I would have to check with my counterparts in the indigenous communities and first nations, for example, to see whether local municipalities and surrounding first nations might be better off being in one consultative group. We work very closely on all kinds of other things, but the notion that there should be more of that consultation work is very positive.

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

Thank you for that.

Mr. Paquin, it is really a pleasure to see you again today. If I recall correctly, we met in Montreal when you visited there. I want to say hello again and welcome you here today.

How do you think we can reconcile the desire for growth and greater profitability with the need to be fiscally responsible?

[Jacques Paquin]

They are certainly not incompatible.

We want to have sustainable facilities. However, being sustainable also means being responsible from the social, environmental and economic perspectives. So we have to make sure the facilities we put in place do a good job of meeting the needs of the economy and can be made profitable.

Obviously, that sometimes requires government assistance, since the facilities have a very long lifespan and the resources for meeting their needs may be beyond the reach of the local port authority.

In any event, there is certainly no conflict between being fiscally responsible and developing port facilities.

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

My next question could be for Mr. Hall or any witness who would like to chime in.

In your view, what are the most pressing infrastructure needs at Canada's marine ports? Perhaps you could see that through the lens of how well Canadian ports are competing with American ones. What do you see as opportunities and challenges in this regard?

[Christopher Hall]

I'll kick it off. Thank you for the question. It's a great one.

I'll tackle the competitiveness with the U.S. first. That is an important point. We can't forget about our neighbours to the south. As I mentioned in my opening remarks about cargo being king, once cargo finds another routing it won't come back, no matter what you do and no matter what incentives you apply. The switching costs in shipping are so high that once an alternative route is found, a port won't get it back. There may be some small exceptions. There's always the worry of the thin edge of the wedge. If the door is open a bit and cargo finds its way into Canada via a U.S. port, that would probably expand and continue.

U.S. ports are at capacity, or many of them are, so there could be some constraints there that may not make this practical. Something that we as Canadians have to be very aware of is keeping the whole system competitive. That's in trucking, rail, ports and labour. It all works together.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Mr. Hall and Ms. Koutrakis.

Mr. Barsalou-Duval, the floor is yours. You have two and a half minutes.

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Paquin, you said earlier that you were working on a project involving recreational and tourist activities in collaboration with the municipality of Trois-Rivières, since you are located near an historic crossroads.

People often complain when there is insufficient collaboration between ports and municipalities. I think it's interesting to see that here you have given us an example of a port that, on the other hand, has a joint project with a municipality and wants to put it into effect.

What is this project, in concrete terms, and what are the reasons why it has not yet been carried out?

[Jacques Paquin]

I would first like to point out that the growth and the successes we have experienced in recent years are largely due to the relationship we have developed with our city and our community. Without that, I can assure you that we would never have managed to achieve what we have accomplished to date. That relationship continues to grow stronger with all sorts of initiatives that we take and through projects that we are able to carry out together, within the limits of our powers.

The project we mentioned today is in an area, as I was saying earlier, that cannot really be used for handling goods in the long term. We are still doing that today because, since we are operating at full capacity, every space we have is useful, despite the constraints it imposes. However, for several years now, we have still been thinking about a change of use for this area.

In collaboration with the City, we have come up with a redevelopment project for this area. To carry it out, we would have to be able to join with other projects of a more recreational and tourist character and that are more commercial, given the nature of the environment in which the area is located.

The City is obviously entirely prepared to have us go ahead. We have retained urban planning firms to come up with the concept, but unfortunately, we do not have the power to carry out projects of this nature. It falls outside the powers we are given as a port authority.

That is simply what has prevented us from going forward, to date.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you, Mr. Paquin and Mr. Barsalou-Duval.

Next we'll have Mr. Bachrach.

Mr. Bachrach, the floor is yours. You have two and a half minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to also ask a couple of questions of Mr. Paquin, particularly regarding the relationship between the port in Trois-Rivières and the municipality. I'm curious if there are vacant port lands on which the port pays a payment in lieu of taxes to the municipality. If so, how is the value of those vacant lands established and how has that value changed over time?

[Jacques Paquin]

Thank you for the question.

Unfortunately, we don't have a lot of vacant spaces, precisely because the spaces we have been able to add are occupied. To give you an idea of the scope of the relationship we have built with our city in recent years, for example, we have been able to add almost 80,000 square metres to the Port of Trois-Rivières by acquiring spaces within the city. The City has even transferred what is actually an important road, rue Notre-Dame, to the Port, and this has completely changed the Port's productivity. It means we can manage the lines of trucks and road traffic entering and leaving the port much more efficiently. So there has already been a gain for the Port in terms of productivity. It also eliminates lines of trucks that used to unload in the streets alongside the port.

I would also point out that when traffic enters and leaves the port to make its way to national transportation networks, whether road or rail, it has to go through the city. So we have to make sure that the city's road networks are capable of supporting the traffic generated by the port.

Once again, we worked very closely with our city to direct traffic to the city's roads that are capable of supporting it. That approach allows us to continue our growth without it creating additional nuisances for our community.

On the issue of municipal taxation of the spaces available for our use, we have created a committee with the City. The committee meets once a year and its members agree on the amount that will be granted. I would say that it corresponds very closely to the tax rates applied generally in the city.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Mr. Paquin.

Thank you, Mr. Bachrach.

Next we have Mr. Muys.

Mr. Muys, the floor is yours. You have five minutes.

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

Thank you.

I just want to pick up on one of the previous questions. There's been a discussion about the idea that once cargo goes, you can't bring it back and it will go elsewhere.

I know you were cut off on your answer, Mr. Hall. Maybe you can continue. What are the most important things we can do to really pre-empt this from happening?

[Christopher Hall]

I believe the most important thing we can do right now is create the strategy that many people have been talking about at this committee. That strategy is so important.

I've spent the last 35-plus years visiting ports in Canada and around the world, from both a seagoing perspective and a shore management perspective, and I've spent seven-plus years in a Canadian port authority. We have a saying, and Mr. Paquin will probably know it: If you've seen one port, you've seen one port. That couldn't be more true. Every port is unique, and that is a fundamental element.

If we start looking at infrastructure projects with that uniqueness in mind, yes, they have to be looked at through that lens, because everything needs to be considered in that uniqueness context. However, if we're only looking at them that way and not from a broader national strategy perspective, we get to the scenario where maybe we've over-invested in one area and underinvested in another, or certain corridors are heavily weighted on one commodity versus another.

That goes back to Mr. Guy's point about corridor strategies. From our perspective at the Shipping Federation, the development of a national strategy would be mission number one. Once you have that, you can start looking at individual projects with the uniqueness of the ports in mind and then start allocating funds in alignment with the national strategy.

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

Certainly there's been lots of discussion on the lack of a national strategy for ports and supply chains. The task force report was cited, and there are a lot of recommendations in it, none of which have been acted upon thus far. How do we get that unstuck?

[Christopher Hall]

I'm hoping the budget at four o'clock this afternoon might unlock some of that, but we'll see. We're hopeful that there will be some attention paid to those points in the upcoming budget.

There's no question that they take funding. These things don't get done without financial resources, so work needs to start happening. You know the old saying that you eat the elephant one bite at a time. There are a lot of things in that report, as we all acknowledge, but there are some items in there that are very important that won't take—

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

I'm sorry to interrupt you, but my time is winding down. What would be the most pressing item? We've heard a lot of things, like rail capacity, trucking and labour shortages, so there's a multiplicity of issues. What's really at the top of the list for you?

[Christopher Hall]

Let's get the strategy under way, and let's get some alignment among government agencies involved in the supply chain piece. We need some greater visibility across departments so that we have less siloing of actors within the supply chain on the federal side.

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

I have a minute, so I'll ask something of Mr. Hall and Mr. Guy.

There was a comment at the beginning—I think it was yours, Mr. Guy—about red tape and the bureaucratic nightmare when getting things done. Do you want to say a bit more about that in the 45 seconds I have left? It's useful, I think, for the report.

[Robin Guy]

Absolutely. Again, done right, regulation can be our competitive advantage. Tying that into the last question, if we are to take a look at and figure out how we can regulate smarter, that can be a competitive advantage for us in Canada versus anybody else.

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

Is that tied into talking about competitiveness? Is that a concern from your perspective?

[Robin Guy]

Yes. At the end of the day, when regulation is not serving the public interest, we start asking questions. Unfortunately, there are a few issues with that right now.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Your time is up, Mr. Muys. Thank you very much.

Next up is Mr. Badawey.

Mr. Badawey, the floors is yours. You have five minutes.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

We've heard about long-term infrastructure investments from Mr. Guy, we've heard about components of the strategy from Mr. Hall and we've heard from Mr. Paquin that investments need to be optimized. I'll preface my comments by saying that the analysts need your testimony to draft this report, so today I would like to get granular on the long-term investment components of the strategy and the optimization of investments. All of you feel free to follow up with correspondence to the committee to elaborate on this.

In his remarks to the House of Commons, President Biden, who just visited Ottawa, emphasized the need for partnerships, working together and further integration of the supply chains between the world's closest trading partners. The supply chain task force returned with the recommendation that we “[e]ngage the U.S. and the provinces/territories to achieve reciprocal recognition of regulations, policies and processes to enhance transportation supply chain competitiveness and productivity.” This is for water—for example, the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence—mainline and short-line rail, major roadways, airports, servicing lands, integrating distribution and logistics and strengthening fluidity at our borders.

One, do you feel that to execute action plans contained within our collectively established trade corridor and supply chain strategies, it is absolutely imperative to ensure we move forward by working together, in a whole-of-governments—and I said “governments”—approach at all levels, on a binational, leveraged, public-private and integrated multimodal capital strategy that recognizes integrated supply chains and takes into consideration a binational integration of distribution and logistics? Two, what are some of the components that come to mind?

First off is Mr. Guy.