Transport Committee on Oct. 4th, 2023

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Thank you very much, and thank you for the chat earlier this week.

I've done a little bit of homework on the project. This is one of many projects that seem to have been hit by COVID supply chain snags. I'll continue, and hopefully I'll make you happier by the end of my intervention.

There are a number of different programs that run into delays or challenges for different reasons. The more serious the problem with the project, the more serious the response can be from the federal government, leading up to withholding funding that was committed to a project in circumstances where there is no plan to deal with the problems that do arise. Some problems are dealt with. We work with partners to get through them.

On this particular project, I'm actually happy to make a team of our officials available to you to discuss, top to bottom, where we see the challenges and opportunities to move the project forward. I would rather not get to a place where we have to have conversations about withholding funding. I would rather get to a place where we see the thing get built, and I'll make available to you whomever you need.

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

I would very much appreciate that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Mr. Morrice.

That brings us to the end of the first round.

On behalf of the committee members, I want to thank you, Minister Fraser, for joining us this evening and for giving us your time.

As well, thank you, Deputy Minister Gillis.

We'll suspend for two minutes as we switch over our witnesses.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

I call the meeting back to order.

Colleagues, in the second hour, appearing before us once again, we have Kelly Gillis, deputy minister of infrastructure and communities. Joining Ms. Gillis will be Marco Presutti, assistant deputy minister of investment, partnerships and innovation.

Seeing as we don't have opening remarks, we will begin with a round of questioning, once again, with Dr. Lewis.

Dr. Lewis, the floor is yours. You have six minutes.

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

Thank you for coming here today.

My question is just going to be posed generally, so whoever you think is best suited to answer the question can feel free to do so.

The Canada Infrastructure Bank Act states that every five years “the designated Minister must have a review of the provisions and operation” of the act. We know that the Lake Erie connector project was cancelled. Why wasn't this project, as well as other unsuccessful CIB projects, mentioned in the legislative review?

[Kelly Gillis, Deputy Minister, Infrastructure and Communities, Office of Infrastructure of Canada]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

For that particular project, it was the proponent that cancelled the project.

By the way, we look at the legislative review overall. It's really starting with the premise of the legislation and the mandate. It starts at a higher level than any particular project in and of itself.

We received 40 written submissions. I understand from the OPQ that you had asked for the summary of the submissions, which we didn't have, but we're happy to provide you with the actual submissions, if that's what you're asking for, so you can read what we received from the review itself and take into consideration the mandate of the bank.

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

I think it would have been important in that OPQ to have stated that you do not have a summary because you did not prepare a summary but you do have the actual submissions. What happens is that I get a blank document. The blank document suggests to me that there was no communication and that your report was not based on anything. That's somewhat misleading. I appreciate that you're going to rectify this, but I think there should have been some indication that there was additional information.

In addition to that, even though the proponent took away that project, it's still a failed project, so you could learn from your failures. You could learn from why the proponent took it away. That would have been very instructive in the report, and it was not there.

I'm curious who made that decision and why.

[Kelly Gillis]

Thank you, Chair, for the question.

We met with over 80 intervenors and took in a lot of information. In the report, there also are recommendations for improvement with Canada Infrastructure Bank on how they can be more clear on what their mandate is, how to work with the bank and how they can be more transparent on their results. The bank is taking in all of those recommendations to improve how they work with stakeholders across the country.

Some of the learnings come from what has worked and what hasn't worked with proponents. I think with the Lake Erie proposal, the proponent chose not to pursue that particular transaction. The bank can take that in and see how it can continually improve its interactions to have successful projects.

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

Yes. I would have loved to see that in the report.

[Kelly Gillis]

Now, it does have 48 different projects that it has had financial close with. It has 32 projects under construction, so it has been able to advance in many different areas, as the minister spoke about, in the different sectors.

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

Thank you for your answer.

In budget 2023, the government announced that a new round of the smart cities challenge was coming this year. Does the new round of funding criteria take into consideration some of the concerns that Canadians are having and that I'm hearing from municipal councillors about smart cities, smart technologies and issues of privacy?

[Kelly Gillis]

Thank you very much, Chair, for the question.

The future of smart cities and the smart cities challenge is being taken into consideration. We always want to take into consideration, even in the first round, the different aspects of data and proper use of data by communities. Privacy and governance are very important.

As technology is evolving, certainly since the first round of the smart cities challenge, its use of data has advanced significantly. Any programs that we would put out would take that into consideration, so thank you very much for the comment.

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

In considering that, have any policies or regulations been proposed?

This is something that we're hearing over and over again in communications with municipal councillors. They want to give Canadians some assurance that their privacy will be protected with smart cities. It's something that Canadians are very concerned about.

[Kelly Gillis]

As we look at the policies and regulations from the Government of Canada, we follow all the regulations that are put out from the lead, whether it's from Treasury Board Secretariat.... We do have the CIO for the Government of Canada. We have a chief data officer for the Government of Canada. Innovation, Science and Economic Development has also put out guidelines and best practices for use of technology. All of the best practices that we know of would be taken into consideration, and we're making sure that would be shared with municipalities.

We have also worked with Evergreen. We have asked them to work with experts to help municipalities understand privacy considerations.

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

Isn't Evergreen the company that had that failed project?

[Kelly Gillis]

Evergreen is a non-profit organization that works with municipalities on training and on looking at different opportunities to make sure they have practices in place within communities. It is not a company. It's a non-profit organization.

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

How will the first round of the smart cities challenge differ from the second round that you're proposing?

[Kelly Gillis]

There haven't been decisions on the exact program dynamics of the next round of the smart cities challenge. We're taking the landscape into consideration. We'll be making decisions with the government going forward.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you, Deputy Minister Gillis.

Thank you, Dr. Lewis.

Next we have Mr. Rogers.

The floor is yours, sir. You have six minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I was fortunate enough to be in Gander today doing a major announcement on behalf of Minister Fraser. It's an affordable housing project that was done in partnership with the province and the Town of Gander, the municipality. It was a great day and an exciting project for that particular municipality.

From that, I want to ask a couple of questions. First of all, can you elaborate more on our government's ambitious plans to support building homes quickly? Either one of you can speak on this.

[Kelly Gillis]

The minister spoke about moving forward in working in partnership with other orders of government, looking at all of the federal levers and putting them in place as being very important to the government. Working from Infrastructure Canada to bring infrastructure and housing together is one of those ways, as we look at communities and the importance of bringing into consideration the necessary infrastructure investments that are required to be able to densify and augment the housing needs within communities.

Then it's about working very much in partnership with the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation and a number of the programs that they have in place right now, such as the rapid housing initiative, the rental construction financing initiative, and the co-investment fund. There are a number of programs that exist now.

It's about looking at what more is required as we look at the challenges ahead, very much in partnership with our provinces, territories and municipalities, as well as the private sector.

There is a lot of work to do, but we have put different programs in place, like the GST rebate that just happened or increasing the financing capabilities of the CMHC by raising the Canada mortgage bonds. We're looking at what more we can do immediately to make a difference.

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

Thank you.

I'm looking at it from a municipal perspective, as a former mayor. How important are municipal governments going to be in our efforts to generate more housing in terms of initiating projects or advancing projects with the province and the federal government?

[Kelly Gillis]

Municipalities are critical. They're at the front line. Housing and infrastructure are very local. Working in partnership with all three orders of government is going to be critical.

The program I should have mentioned as well is the housing accelerator fund. Those are agreements directly with municipalities, giving them funding to change and address barriers at the municipal level to be able to expedite and accelerate the building of homes in their own communities. It's very much tailored to the issues within that municipality that need to be addressed for them to be able to make a difference within their communities.

Municipalities would be very important in other programs as well, including the project that you just announced today.

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

Just to follow up on that, communities, as you said, are on the front lines when it comes to the impact of these projects and funding programs, but also the impact of climate change. In particular, in my riding, many of the communities are coastal. They depend on the water for jobs, food and infrastructure.

What can you tell us about the action the federal government is taking to help increase the climate resiliency of communities across the country?

[Kelly Gillis]

When we look at the work that we've been doing on resiliency, we see that it's been quite expensive. It's not just about the really important investments in the capital infrastructure to make the actual infrastructure more resilient, but also about how we build. We've invested $120 million in working with the National Research Council and the Standards Council to develop new standards and guides to help people build for the weather that we're facing now and into the future. We are taking that into consideration, as well as supporting asset management and taking into consideration climate change with asset management so communities have better knowledge and tools to enable them to be the custodians of the infrastructure they have with the weather and the severity that they're facing, to ensure that they have the integrity within the infrastructure.

As well, we have a disaster mitigation and adaptation program that has just closed, which is about $1 billion. We'll be making more capital investments both in the built environment and in the natural infrastructure in the near term.