Transport Committee on Nov. 8th, 2023

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

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

I would note that the substance of this motion reflects the opinion of the committee, which has been expressed through a report that had a single recommendation and was duly tabled in the House. There was an opportunity for a concurrence debate. I believe that occurred—I can't recall exactly—and it received an official, if somewhat inadequate, response from the government.

I support the overall thrust of the motion. My concern is that these motions are piling up at all of our committees and obstructing the work we're trying to do, namely to learn more and provide some constructive feedback on a massive infrastructure investment that, on the face of it, could have big implications for the most populous part of our country.

I don't support just chewing up the committee's time with all of these motions, particularly if they express things that the committee has already expressed. I appreciate it being brought forward, and sometimes repetition is necessary.

I would offer that one option would be to include the gist of this motion as a recommendation in the report that we will be putting together on HFR. It could be a PS at the end of the report: that we still think the CIB is not the right mechanism for funding infrastructure like this because of the government's fixation with delivering profits to private investors and that we prefer a public model.

I would hope that my Conservative friends would join me in voting for such a recommendation. I'll be voting against the motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Mr. Bachrach.

Mr. Barsalou‑Duval, you have the floor.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I will also be voting against the motion, not because I don't like the content, but simply because the committee has already expressed its opinion in a report tabled in the House of Commons. Therefore, I see no need to keep engaging in the same debate over and over again, especially since we currently have an important study that I'd like to see move forward.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you, Mr. Barsalou‑Duval.

Seeing no other comments or questions, we'll go to a recorded vote on Mr. Badawey's amendment first.

(Amendment negatived: nays 6; yeas 5)

We will now go to the main motion and have a recorded vote.

(Motion negatived: nays 7; yeas 4)

Thank you, Madam Clerk. The motion does not carry.

Dr. Lewis, I'm going to turn the floor back over to you.

You have four minutes and 47 seconds left for your line of questioning.

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

Thank you.

My first question is for Mr. Robitaille.

You mentioned that the CIB subcontracted services in order to create the HFR. Is that correct? Was that correct evidence?

[Vincent Robitaille]

Yes.

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

With regard to that $18 million given back to the CIB, was that given from the HFR back to the CIB?

[Vincent Robitaille]

Yes, that is correct.

To bring a bit of context, from 2018 to 2021, during the due diligence phase, a joint project office composed of the Canada Infrastructure Bank and Via Rail did studies on the project. That was a continuation of this work that was done. At that point, it was funded by the Government of Canada.

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

Was the main contractor Via Rail, or did they hire subcontractors for the $18 million?

[Vincent Robitaille]

The primary contractor is a joint venture between Arup and Aecom, which are architecture and engineering firms.

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

You, or rather the HFR, received the government funding and then gave it back to the Canada Infrastructure Bank.

[Vincent Robitaille]

That's correct. The money was used to continue those contracts through the transition. Now all of this work is done by the new Crown corporation, Via HFR Inc. That was a temporary measure until the Crown corporation was created.

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

Essentially, the Canada Infrastructure Bank hired contractors to the tune of $18 million to confirm that HFR needed to be created. It was essentially 18 million dollars' worth of consultants.

[Vincent Robitaille]

It was to prepare the procurement that we launched this year. It was all the technical work that needed to be made available to bidders for the RFP process that is ongoing right now.

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

It was just to get it ready to go through the RFP process for bidders to come in. You don't have a contractor yet; this $18 million was all spent on consultants.

[Vincent Robitaille]

Yes, this was to prepare.... We're talking about 1,000 kilometres of new tracks. Various elements of the work were necessary to provide the information for our bidders to be able to bid on this project.

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

Wouldn't the contractors coming to you have solutions on how to move forward?

It seems like $18 million is an outrageous amount to pay contractors. The CIB now needs this money back to pay out to contractors and nothing has really started yet. You don't even have a partner yet, but $18 million has been spent on consultants.

[Vincent Robitaille]

Again, this work is essential on a major project like this. It is to provide all of the information about the nature of the lines, the rights of way that are available and the types of technologies that can be considered.

All of this work represents hundreds of documents that have been shared in an electronic data room for bidders to use to prepare their proposals. Each one of them will take nine months to build a proposal based on this information.

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

Was there a main contractor? Was there a main organization that dealt with all of the complexities of getting this information together? Who was the main contractor?

[Vincent Robitaille]

Basically, that contract is a joint venture between two large architectural and engineering companies. One of them is Arup, and the other one is Aecom. They were jointly responsible for preparing the work.

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

I understand the total, as of October 11, was $28,359,171.99.

Does it sound correct that we've actually spent up to $28 million on contractors before this thing even got off the ground?

[Vincent Robitaille]

Those figures are accurate.

Again, given the size and scope of this project, those numbers are what would be expected.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Dr. Lewis.

Thank you, Monsieur Robitaille.

Next we have Ms. Koutrakis.

The floor is yours. You have five minutes, please.

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses for being here with us at a late sitting of the TRAN committee. It's very much appreciated.

I want to speak a little bit about reliability. As we know, reliability is a big plus of HFR and also for high-speed rail, because they operate on a dedicated passenger track. We also know that Via currently operates on some of its own track and mostly on host railways like CN.

Very roughly, what is the difference in reliability and on-time performance between the two? Can we say a passenger railway can truly be successful on other people's tracks, competing with their trains?

[Vincent Robitaille]

Well, unfortunately, the reliability on those tracks has been going down. I will share the latest high-level figures that I'm aware of. Maybe Via Rail would be in a better position to have the exact figures.

Our understanding is that on the tracks they own, which are mostly around Ottawa, they have over 90% reliability for on-time performance, being within about five minutes of the arrival time that was on the tickets. Outside of those railways, this goes down to below 70%. Again, we could get the precise figure, but you see the massive difference between the two.