Transport Committee on Oct. 4th, 2023

[Leslyn Lewis, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

Minister, I know that Canada Infrastructure Bank projects have been discontinued, yet they did not appear at all in the review. May I understand why you omitted certain projects from that review?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

I'm not sure about the specific projects that would have been omitted from the review.

[Leslyn Lewis, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

There is the Fortis project, for example.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

I don't have the information front of mind for every project that would have crossed the bank's desk. If you want to send a follow-up, I'll do my best to give you a fulsome answer subsequent to today's meeting, or feel free to ask the officials who will be joining for the second half as well.

[Leslyn Lewis, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

I will do that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

You have 30 seconds, Dr. Lewis.

[Leslyn Lewis, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

Minister, with respect to the question that my colleague asked you regarding why your government is just now proposing policies that will deal with the housing crisis when you have been in government for eight years, why is it that these policies are just coming out now?

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Give a 15-second response, please, Minister.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

We started in 2017 with the national housing strategy. It was uniquely focused on low-income housing that was operating primarily outside of the market. We've had a renewed focus because we've seen the landscape change, and more middle-class families need homes as well at a rate that perhaps wasn't as prevalent in 2015 when we formed government.

I'm happy to elaborate in a subsequent answer.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Minister.

Thank you, Dr. Lewis.

Next, we have Ms. Murray.

Ms. Murray, the floor is yours. You have five minutes.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Thank you very much.

I will be sharing the last minute with MP Morrice.

Congratulations on your new assignment, Minister Fraser.

I'm going to be talking about the part in your mandate that mentions investments in green infrastructure. The context I want to put on the table is that we have an urgent imperative to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions in Canada. We have strong targets that we share with the international community. We've been making progress, but we are going to have to find more things to do because some of the low-hanging fruit gets picked in the beginning.

I see buildings, housing and infrastructure, and the embedded carbon as an area that hasn't really been explored to the same degree as, say, energy management—

[Leslyn Lewis, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

I have a point of order.

I heard the member talk about a mandate and we haven't received a mandate letter yet. Does she have a mandate letter in her possession that we don't have? I'd like to be on the same page. I heard her speak about a mandate.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

I have the mandates of the previous minister for housing and the previous minister for infrastructure, so I'm looking at the areas that are appropriate. If I called it his mandate incorrectly, I apologize for that, but that has been in the mandate of the government up until now.

[Leslyn Lewis, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

Okay, thank you. I accept that. I just heard “in your mandate”, so I thought I was missing something not having that mandate letter.

Thank you for the clarification.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you, Dr. Lewis.

Ms. Murray, I stopped your time, so you still have four minutes and two seconds left.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Okay, thank you.

On the built form and embedded carbon, we will need as a country to account for our infrastructure and how we have reduced the carbon footprint of infrastructure compared with a previous date. That would be part of the calculation.

We are also aware that building with wood—in other words, mass timber construction—is becoming a solution. It's not so much a solution, but it does replace carbon-intensive steel and concrete. It is also fast to build, compared with previous construction techniques.

I'm interested in your thoughts on how we can advance mass timber construction through your portfolio.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Thank you for this. I absolutely loved the question.

It's incumbent upon all of us, I think, to do everything we can to get creative and fight the climate crisis. One of the things we can do is find technologies or products that have been around for a very long time and can sequester carbon. Wood construction is actually one way we can do this. In my view, it provides an opportunity not only to use cleaner building materials but also to sequester carbon in the final product.

The other piece that is really exciting about this question is that we have an opportunity to fundamentally change how homes get built in this country. We do not build cars today the way we did a hundred years ago. We do not build anything today the way we did a hundred years ago, unless you're talking about houses. If we are going to solve the housing crisis, we need to build more homes and factories, embrace mass timber and embrace 3-D printing technologies that are emerging to figure out how we can build far more quickly.

If we actually scale up by innovating the way we build homes, including mass timber, we can do the right thing to fight climate change, and we can also build way more homes way more quickly. It's something I want to pursue vigorously, because if we don't, there is no path forward that will allow us to build the 3.5 million additional homes we need to solve Canada's supply gap that exists today.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Thank you for being up to speed on that.

I'm a big champion of mass timber, because UBC, in my riding, built Brock Commons, which is a residence that's 18 storeys high. It is a hybrid mass timber construction. I am told that it took three months from when the hole was dug in the ground to when the students were moving into the residence. It is more efficient. It's cheaper. It's greener, and it's actually better for the forest industry as well, because it utilizes wood that might otherwise be waste.

Another question I have in terms of building—

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

I'm sorry, Ms. Murray. I have to make sure that we provide that one minute to Mr. Morrice.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Okay. Am I at my five-minute mark?

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Yes, you are.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Oh my goodness.

We'll talk later.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

It works. It's good for the environment. It's fast, and we should do more.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you, Ms. Murray.

Thank you, Minister.

Mr. Morrice, I turn the floor over to you. You have one minute for your question, sir.

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Thank you, Ms. Murray, for your kindness.

Minister, I just want to pick up on a significant concern of my community, which we spoke about earlier this week. Back in 2017, the federal government funded $752 million to the Province of Ontario to build a two-way, all-day GO train service from Kitchener to Toronto. In the time since, though, while folks are being left behind on overcrowded buses, the Province of Ontario has yet to commit even to a timeline to complete the project.

Can you comment on your personal openness, and that of your office and/or officials, to work with my team and me to call for some accountability from the Province of Ontario on these federal funds?