Transport Committee on April 18th, 2023

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, Ms. Gillis. Welcome back to the committee. I also thank your team for being here to answer our questions.

I'd like to start with the five-year legislative review of the Canada Infrastructure Bank Act.

I was just looking on the Infrastructure Canada website. It says the review is currently under way. I don't think there's very much information about what the review looks like.

I wonder whether you could talk a bit about the shape of that review, how the public can engage in it, what proactive steps Infrastructure Canada is taking to reach out to stakeholders and solicit their feedback in the program to date, and what you foresee as being the timeline for reporting back to Parliament.

[Kelly Gillis]

Thank you very much for the question.

I'm glad you actually looked on our website. We have a website that talks about the review.

We've had a number of engagements with stakeholders across the country, whether these are financial institutions, the private sector, or provinces and territories. We had a ministerial meeting with our colleagues in infrastructure ministries across the country and this was an important part of the discussion. There have been bilateral tables and round tables. The C2P3—that's an acronym for the Canadian Council for Public-Private Partnerships—has hosted a number of round tables. It has been an active part of the discussion in the infrastructure...as well as the communities across the country using also the FCM.

There's been a lot of engagement. We've been receiving written comments. They continue to come in daily, at this point in time, from interlocutors, stakeholders and interested parties. We've also used social media to avail ourselves of making sure people are aware of the opportunity to provide comments on the five-year legislative review.

On a legislative review such as this.... It began in June of last year, and the minister will table a report in Parliament in June of this year. That would be the reporting requirement.

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

Thank you, Ms. Gillis.

Moving on to public transit, I think everyone's aware that our public transit systems took a real hit during the pandemic. Ridership plummeted, fare-box revenue plummeted and there's a lot of concern among transit authorities that we could be facing a bit of a death spiral, in terms of the use of public transit.

While Infrastructure Canada is focused on building new transit systems and expanding transit—my colleague spoke a bit to that in his questioning—there's a real concern about the sustainability of our transit systems delivering the services they already provide. There's been a call for the federal government to take a more proactive role in supporting the operations. I know there have been two emergency interventions to help support transit services.

Could you speak to the future of the federal government's role in providing operational support for transit systems, so that municipalities and municipal property taxpayers and riders aren't left trying to support these networks financially as they return to full ridership?

[Kelly Gillis]

Thank you for the question.

Public transit, as you've rightly said, is a really important part of a community and the mobility of people within our communities. That's why it's been the most important investment asset class for Infrastructure Canada recently, and why the government has announced a $3 billion permanent public transit fund, starting in 2026-27, as well as rural transit, active transit, zero-emission bus transit funds lately, again to enhance the opportunity to be able to fund transit.

As we're coming through on the other side of the pandemic and working with communities and understanding the ridership and the fare box, communities are working to understand the service provision and the operating costs of what can be provided, and working with their municipal and provincial governments.

We have been, and continue to fund rehabilitation, as well as capital, and we are consulting. We have consulted on the permanent public transit fund. That has not finished its design, but we have been in the capital investment to be able to enhance the provision of transit within communities, which is a really important investment and support for communities going forward.

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

Okay, Ms. Gillis, I'm trying to parse your words.

I didn't hear anything specifically about operational support. There's a lot of emphasis on infrastructure, and I understand that at Infrastructure Canada, that is the predominant focus, but the concern is really around operational support. How do we ensure that these transit networks don't have to cut routes, don't have to reduce service and, as a result, go into this death spiral where riders are seeing less and less service delivery at a time when we need more and more people to be riding public transit?

I know that my time has now expired, so maybe we'll pick it up in the next round, but I appreciate your—

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

You actually have 45 seconds left, Mr. Bachrach.

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

Oh, I do? Well there you go.

Speaking specifically to operational support, there have been dollars through the Safe Restart Agreement and the subsequent agreement to provide operational support to keep these transit services alive, but the real question is about the future role of the federal government in funding transit operations.

Is that role currently being discussed within Infrastructure Canada?

[Kelly Gillis]

Infrastructure Canada, as I said, is funded capital to continue. The communities that are closest to the service provision are best at determining the costs and service provisions based on their ridership and the needs of their community.

Those have not been, traditionally, part of Infrastructure Canada, and at this point in time, there's been no decision for that to change.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Deputy Minister Gillis.

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, Mr. Chair.

First, before I ask some questions of the officials from the Office of Infrastructure of Canada, I want to amplify the remarks and the motion put forward by my colleague, Mr. Davidson, about soil dumping. Certainly in my community, which is in proximity to the GTA, we've been dealing with this issue of soil dumping, as have all of the communities in and around the Golden Horseshoe and the GTA for a number of years.

In fact, we've had a number of instances of contaminated soil dumping where the municipality and the province have had to chase that down relentlessly, and so I certainly support this study. The fact that there's this loophole in the regulations at the federal level is outrageous, and I certainly support every effort to close that.

Since we have departmental officials here in the first hour before the minister arrives here in 15 minutes, let me take this opportunity to go a bit granularly into some infrastructure projects in my constituency that I want to ask about.

Regarding the green and inclusive community-building fund, there was a proposal put forward by proponents of Canada's basketball training centre and hub, which would have been located in my constituency at Clappison's Corners in the Hamilton area. It actually had the support of all MPs from all parties in the Hamilton area. They were sort of twice passed over for funding. It's a LEED building, zero-carbon building design centre, version two, with lots of economic impact and tourism opportunities there. It's something we're very excited about, but that fund, I think, is currently closed to applications.

Is that going to reopen, or is there another avenue that proponents of this project should pursue, because they haven't received any feedback?

[Kelly Gillis]

Thank you very much for the question.

That particular fund, as you noted, has just closed. We have received a number of applications— certainly significantly more than the fund's value—and those assessments are just under way. Decisions will be made known to the proponents in the coming months.

As I said, that particular fund literally just closed, and decisions will be known in time. People have seen that program as very relevant to their communities across the country, so thank you very much for the interest.

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

There's hope yet that this might be pursued under that program.

I'm switching gears to the extent that rural Internet falls under the bailiwick of your office. When we talk about infrastructure, certainly in my community, it's important. I have rural areas and suburban communities within the city of Hamilton. While it is the tenth largest city in the country, the rural areas are really below standard in terms of the basic standard for service for rural Internet.

I know that there are a number of federal departments, provincial governments and others that are involved in rolling out permits for rural broadband across the country. What level of involvement does the Office of Infrastructure have in that?

[Kelly Gillis]

In our invest in Canada infrastructure program, we did have Internet and broadband as an eligible category in our rural and remote stream. I would say that it was more ISED, the science and innovation department, under its universal broadband program that would be the main program funding Internet within the country. As well, CRTC has an Internet fund.

Also, our Canada community-building fund also does allow Internet as a service provision and eligible asset category. It would be completely within the purview of Hamilton to use those funds to be able to augment Internet connection within the community.

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

Let me ask this, because here's what I've observed in the last couple of months. There have been a couple of announcements through the universal broadband fund, provincial—in this case, the Government of Ontario—infrastructure funds, often jointly. In all of the communities surrounding us, millions of millions of dollars, multi-millions of dollars in a lot of cases.... Yet we have had only $300,000 19 months ago. We seem to be being overlooked. I'm not sure why. Is it that the application's not being made?

Just from your experience in working, when there are multiple levels of government, is it the federal government that's providing the funding and the province that's deciding on the implementation? Is it just that there are shovel ready projects not ready? What potentially would you speculate to be the hiccup here?

[Kelly Gillis]

I have no details on that, so I'd be very hesitant to speculate on what the concern is and why the applications have not been made and/or funded.

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

All right, thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Mr. Muys.

Thank you, Deputy Minister Gillis.

Next we have Mr. Rogers.

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

[Churence Rogers, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

Thank you, Chair.

Welcome to our witnesses today. It's good to have some of you back, those we've seen at previous meetings.

I want to focus on coastal erosion and disaster mitigation funding. I live in a very rural, remote community. I guess I could call it “remote” or “rural”. Bonavista—Burin—Trinity has 256 small communities, for the most part, that rely heavily on the infrastructure program that we support as a government.

Since 2015 we have had 221 infrastructure projects that have been approved, which is pretty impressive in terms of the numbers, but these are not large-dollar-value projects. Many of them are very small, but they provide very important support to these small communities.

Many of these communities have challenges besides rural infrastructure, like the normal stuff you see: bridges, roads and municipal stuff. With coastal erosion, we have had numerous storms that have come up the eastern seaboard, in the fall of the year especially, that do tremendous damage to coastal infrastructure. Many of them have seawalls that were constructed 50 years ago that need replacement, places like Bonavista, for example.

On the Burin Peninsula, there are a number of communities where they have erosion taking place on some of their coastline, which impacts some of the roads that run next to it. It's a beautiful riding to drive around because you're always looking at the ocean, for the most part, if you're travelling the peninsulas—the Burin Peninsula, the Bonavista Peninsula, the Baie Verte Peninsula and so on.

These are major challenges, because doing these projects is very expensive. In terms of the percentage of costs, many of these small communities are really challenged to able to do these projects.

You mentioned earlier, Ms. Gillis, that these communities and municipalities can now apply directly to Infrastructure Canada to secure funding to try to fix some of these problems. Many of them, as I said, run into millions of dollars.

What percentage of the funding would the community have to provide, number one? Number two, if we encourage our towns to apply, what is the process they have to go through? Basically, how do they access that funding?

Thanks.

[Kelly Gillis]

Thank you very much for the question.

I'll start with the application process.

It depends on the program. If it's the disaster mitigation and adaptation program that you referenced, there's substantial information on our website on the application guide, the evaluation criteria and the steps to go through. We also have a team under Erin and a colleague that supports any questions. We've also done a number of webinars on the particular program.

We're always available to support communities in understanding the application process and to support any answers to questions they have in getting through that particular process. I think it's a really important component—especially for communities that don't have a lot of capacity—to be able to support those people, because there's a limit to the amount of expertise, potentially, in getting through an application process.

It depends on the program. For the disaster mitigation and adaption program, the federal government has a 50% cost-share, but there are other programs that we pay more for. If it's an indigenous community or indigenous recipient, for example, we can go up to 100%.

It depends on the program. We have significant information on our website for each and every program we have.

We have a rural transportation program that would be relevant to your riding. There's active transportation that may also be relevant to your riding and others. The actual application process and the cost-sharing will vary, depending on the program.

Is there anything, Erin, that you would like to add on the particular programs?

[Peter Schiefke, Liberal, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Mr. Chair, are we good?

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

We're good. We have about 30 seconds left, if Ms. Lynch wants to add anything on to that.

[Erin Lynch, Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Communities and Infrastructure Programs, Office of Infrastructure of Canada]

No, I think the deputy covered it. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Okay.

With that, on behalf of all members, I want to thank the officials for appearing before the committee today.

We're now going to adjourn for five minutes to allow the witnesses to leave and to be able to welcome Minister LeBlanc to the committee for the second half of our meeting today.

This meeting is now suspended for five minutes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

I call this meeting back to order.

On behalf of all of the members of this committee, I would like to welcome the Honourable Dominic LeBlanc.

It is always a pleasure and always entertaining, sir, to have you appear before committee.

We will begin, sir, with opening remarks. I will turn the floor over to you. You have five minutes.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs]

Mr. Chair, thank you.

I'll dispense with the dig at the beginning about its being “entertaining”. I'm here for a substantive conversation on our government's infrastructure priorities. If you're seeking entertainment, Mr. Chair, it must be at another meeting. I couldn't help you with that.

I am happy to be joining you. Earlier, you had an opportunity to speak to our deputy minister and her colleagues. Mr. Chair, I am really happy about this opportunity to discuss how Infrastructure Canada is delivering for Canadians. As I said, deputy minister Kelly Gillis is with me today to help me answer your questions.

Infrastructure Canada continues to work with all levels of government, as well as indigenous communities and other partners, to get public infrastructure built.

Together we are helping to build major infrastructure projects across the country, advance zero-emission transit options and increase affordable housing opportunities for Canadians. From bridges to broadband, we are connecting Canadians across the country. We are helping to make buildings greener and sources of water cleaner. We are supporting a historic conversion of bus and school bus fleets to lower-emissions vehicles in order to help propel us to net-zero emissions by 2050.

We're building accessible community buildings. We're greening public transit. We're in active transportation networks. We're also addressing homelessness and supporting natural infrastructure.

Canadians rely on us every day, as we and our partners rely on each other to deliver to Canadians. Together with our partners across the country, we are improving Canadians' quality of life. That's why I'm pleased to be here to discuss how our investments can, I hope, work for Canadians.

We recently presented the 2022‑23 supplementary estimates (C), which sought a net increase of $7.7 million to help us deliver an unprecedented level of programming for public transit, and green, rural and northern infrastructure projects across the country.

Our 2023-24 estimates seek $9.6 billion in funding to support the department's commitment to invest in infrastructure that helps build stronger communities, fight climate change, and of course strengthen the economy. The majority of the 2023-24 funding will support projects delivered through such infrastructure programs as the investing in Canada infrastructure program, the permanent public transit program and the Canada community-building fund, previously known as the gas tax fund.

The year ahead, Mr. Chair, promises to be another productive one, with new programs ramping up and legacy programs coming to successful conclusions.

Budget 2023 confirmed the Government of Canada's commitment to furthering key infrastructure projects in Canada, and key support for what we are doing at Infrastructure Canada. That's support for transformative investments that fight climate change, deliver cleaner energy, promote investment in our communities, and create well-paying jobs.

Infrastructure in Canada is evolving. Our department is playing a key role in building that greener, cleaner and more resilient future that Canadians expect. Infrastructure Canada's 2023-24 main estimates detail the necessary funding that will enable us to continue that work and get things done for communities across the country, obviously including communities, Mr. Chair, represented by you and our colleagues at this table.

I look forward to our discussion. I thank you for your invitation. I understand that all of the difficult and technical questions were cleaned up by the deputy and her colleagues beforehand, so this should be a very cheerful and easy conversation, as always, Mr. Chair, and that's why I'm here.