Transport Committee on March 11th, 2026

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you, Mr. Greaves.

Thank you, Mr. Penner.

Mr. Barsalou‑Duval, you have the floor for six minutes.

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

Good evening.

Welcome to the witnesses. It’s always a pleasure to have guests.

Mr. Penner, I am from Quebec. Obviously, Quebec has a lot of extremely popular cruise destinations, including Quebec City, the North Shore, Gaspésie, the Magdalen Islands and Montreal. We are blessed in that area.

With that in mind, as far as you know, which areas in Quebec have not been fully tapped, which areas have the strongest potential for growth, and which areas have the greatest investment needs?

Are they the same areas or are they different?

[Barry Penner]

Thank you.

I know there has been significant interest in the port of Montreal. As I mentioned in my opening remarks, there's now shore power available there for ships to plug in and turn off their engines while they're at port. I hear from our members that there's a strong interest in Quebec City. It's a destination that the passengers like to get to. One of the challenges can be arranging transportation from the port of Montreal to Quebec City. An adequate number of buses can be sometimes hard to secure to bring passengers there.

I believe there are some discussions taking place about possibly arranging railcars as an alternative, using the railway system. I believe in your previous session you had someone from Via Rail present. That might be something that could happen in the future, but I'm not in a position to say. There are other options that I know the industry is looking at, with their partners, to try to move passengers to the sites they want to see and therefore reduce some of the traffic on the roads. One option might be rail.

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

You mentioned the importance of shore power in supporting climate change objectives.

Is shore power for these facilities an asset?

Does this attract more cruise ships?

Are there sites that don’t have shore power now, but installation would make a difference?

[Barry Penner]

It certainly is something that I think the cruise lines look at. Of course, price is also a question, but in Canada, we do tend to have very competitive electricity rates. It's not the same in all parts of the world.

Just looking more globally, as I mentioned, while about 80% of the ocean-going cruise ships now are capable of plugging in, only about 3% of the ports in the world can do that, can actually receive the plug and provide the shore power. In Canada, we currently have I believe three ports. I know that others are looking at it actively.

It does come down to a business case. Some ports, if they're not port authorities, don't have the same borrowing capability in order to invest in that shoreside infrastructure. That could be one of the limitations of making this available, but certainly, when it is available at a competitive price, our members are interested in plugging in.

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

My final question is on the availability of customs services. I have to say that this topic comes up repeatedly in testimony from representatives of organizations and ports that appear before us. It would seem that this is a systemic problem.

Do you know why customs services are no longer offered?

Is this a courtesy service or is it based on a user fee?

If it’s based on a user fee and it operates on the user-pay principle, I don’t see why the government would limit opportunities for growth when it comes to customs services.

[Barry Penner]

I believe there is a cost-recovery process involved, but my understanding is that when COVID struck, it disrupted a lot of things. Once cruises resumed after the interruption—it was two years in Canada that cruising was halted—the CBSA services were not restored to all of the smaller ports where previously they had been available. This definitely does negatively impact the ability of our member lines to call on those ports.

In my remarks, I mentioned, let's maybe take a look at expanding the pilot program for virtual clearance that was offered. There might be a way, by using newer technology and newer approaches, that we can expand on that and provide an equivalent amount of security for Canada with these cruise passengers coming aboard. We could deliver the service, but perhaps at a reduced cost, and if staffing is a limitation, then this would be one way to help improve that.

I can speak from personal experience with my family when we called in Victoria. We were all detained on the ship and waiting for clearance to take place: literally for officers to come on board, check paperwork and do various things. Even though my family wasn't being interviewed, we had to wait like everyone else. That then deprives not just the passengers of an experience, but the community of the benefit of having thousands of passengers going ashore and spending money in the community because they're held back for a period of time.

Anything we can do to expedite that process would benefit the cruise experience, but especially it would benefit the communities because, to be a bit crass, there would be more time for passengers to spend money in your communities.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you, Mr. Barsalou‑Duval.

Thank you, Mr. Penner.

Next, we'll go to Mr. Albas.

The floor is yours for five minutes, sir.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Okanagan Lake West—South Kelowna, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

Welcome to my fellow British Columbian, Mr. Penner. I appreciate your being here.

In regard to the cutbacks about particular CBSA allocations, can you give the committee, in writing, a sample of those particular ports where that's an issue, as well as any other suggestions you would have about shortening up? I do like the idea of allowing Canadians who don't need to be checked by CBSA, for example, to do that more expediently. Is that a possibility?

[Barry Penner]

Yes, I can get more information—for sure.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Okanagan Lake West—South Kelowna, BC]

That's a big thing.

I want to talk to you a bit about the issue you mentioned with contractual services. I think you said that it was usually around warranty work. We do have excellent infrastructure in British Columbia—I'm sure other provinces have the same—where we could do more of this work, but it's difficult.

Under CETA, the comprehensive economic treaty agreement with Europe, there's supposed to be a contractual service supplier. It's a T47 that IRCC is supposed to give. It usually takes about two to eight weeks. Then CBSA reviews that. Does your industry know about this particular T47 process that speeds things up so that people can come in and do this kind of contractual work?

[Barry Penner]

I can't say with certainty. I would hope so.

Individual cruise lines are responsible, of course, for arranging for the refits, working with their service provider. In the case of British Columbia, it's Seaspan. They mostly use the facilities around Esquimalt, near Victoria, but also in Vancouver.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Okanagan Lake West—South Kelowna, BC]

Do you think that this committee should recommend to the government that there needs to be more industry consultation about these mechanisms, specifically the T43 for independent professionals and the T47, as I said, for contractual service suppliers? There are already mandated criteria for that. It really disturbs me that we're turning away business because it can't be done in a timely way.

[Barry Penner]

It never hurts to have another look at it. I'm sure there's always room for improvement. I can't say exactly which cruise lines are using which mechanisms, but it's always worth taking a look at whether there are ways we can make our processes more efficient.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Okanagan Lake West—South Kelowna, BC]

If someone has a contract and is an EU resident, they should be able to show up at a port of entry. I'm sure people in your industry would benefit from that. I appreciate that.

Lastly, on modernizing and expanding port infrastructure, you said in your opening statement that there are more than a dozen sites that could be improved. Could you supply the committee with those sites, just so that we can have it for part of our current report?

[Barry Penner]

I believe so, yes.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Okanagan Lake West—South Kelowna, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Penner.

I've already done a notice of motion, Mr. Chair, for this. I move:

That, notwithstanding the scheduling motion adopted by the committee during its 16th meeting, and in light of recent media reports regarding a $206 million taxpayer funded loan from the Canada Infrastructure Bank to the Mersey River wind project, and allegations that the project's electricity selling entity, Roswall Development, is largely owned by individuals with close family or business ties to former Liberal Members of Parliament Scott Brison, Darrell Samson, and David Dingwall, the committee undertake a study examining the decision-making process, due diligence practices, governance safeguards, and conflict of interest policies of the Canada Infrastructure Bank as they relate to this loan;

a. That the study consist of no fewer than two meetings;

b. That the study be given absolute priority over other matters before the committee;

c. That the committee invite the Minister of Housing and Infrastructure, the CEO and other officials from the Canada Infrastructure Bank, and representatives of Roswall Development including Michel Samson, Edgar Samson, Mitchell Brison, Dan Roscoe, David Howell, and Scott Rodgers to testify before the committee in relation to the study—

[Stéphane Lauzon, Liberal, Argenteuil—La Petite-Nation, QC]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

I just received a message from the interpreters that they don't have the writing for that—

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Okanagan Lake West—South Kelowna, BC]

Yes, it's been given.

[Stéphane Lauzon, Liberal, Argenteuil—La Petite-Nation, QC]

—and he's reading too fast, so they can't follow in French.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Okanagan Lake West—South Kelowna, BC]

Mr. Chair, I'm just trying to get through in my time. We have supplied this to the clerk.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

If they can't translate, I'm not allowed to move forward.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Okanagan Lake West—South Kelowna, BC]

I can slow down, but I just need to know that I can finish doing this.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

I'm just going to ask a question of our interpreters. If he slows down, will that be helpful?

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Clarke, ON]

Don't they have a copy of this?