Olivia Chow

[Petitions, March 27th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, spring has arrived and there are a lot more cyclists, and I am pleased to present a petition on their behalf.

The petitioners ask the Government of Canada to introduce a regulation under the Motor Vehicle Safety Act that would make side guards for trucks mandatory in order to prevent cyclists, motorcyclists and pedestrians from being pulled under the wheels of these vehicles. It would be good for the environment, as it reduces fuel usage, and also good for safety.

[Infrastructure, March 26th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, there is nothing new in this so-called new building Canada plan. It is old money with a different name. The building Canada fund went from $1.2 billion a year to $210 million. That is a billion-dollar cut in this renaming exercise. Playing a shell game with Canadians stuck in traffic gridlock or suffering from poor water quality is a cruel joke.

When will we ever see real solutions to the real problems faced by Canadians?

[Infrastructure, March 19th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, traffic gridlock costs billions of dollars a year. Cities and communities need long-term, predictable infrastructure funding so that we can end the gridlock, support industry and grow Canada's economy. Significant projects take significant funding and take significant time. Just renewing build Canada is not enough. Reannouncing old initiatives like gas tax and GST exemptions is not enough.

Will the minister finally act and break the gridlock?

[Transportation, February 27th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives' planned cuts will make travellers less safe in the air, on the water or riding the rails. The minister has repeatedly ignored recommendations from the Transportation Safety Board. He just will not implement its recommendations. Conservatives are cutting Transport Canada's budget by almost 30%. Canadians are travelling more than ever, so how can the minister possibly justify these drastic cuts to transportation safety?

[Business of Supply, February 26th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, we will always vote against budgets that cut Canadian jobs.

That said, the estimate that was tabled in front of the House yesterday cut over a billion dollars in infrastructure funds. It also cut over $270 million to Via Rail, which is more than half of its current funding.

This will lead to increased commute times and more crumbling infrastructure. It will mean that the water system will continue to age and that there will be even more boil water advisories.

Can the minister explain this deep cut in infrastructure and whether he plans to have a long-term infrastructure program in the upcoming budget?

He should answer those questions directly rather than resorting to the blame game and old talking points, because Canadians deserve a clear answer.

[Rail Transportation, February 26th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, today is the first anniversary of the deadly train crash in Burlington. An automatic braking system would have prevented this tragedy. The Transport Safety Board has been recommending this positive train control be made mandatory, just like in the United States.

Instead of making safety a priority, why is the Conservative government cutting VIA Rail's funding by more than half?

[Business of Supply, February 26th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, every time a car driver pays for gasoline, 10¢ for each litre that he or she purchases goes to the federal government. After the Federation of Canadian Municipalities pitched, pushed and lobbied for many years—at one time under the leadership of its former president, the late Jack Layton—finally the Liberal government and then the Conservative government agreed to send some of the gas tax back to municipalities that manage the roads and pay for streetcars, buses and subways. However, that is only 5¢ per litre.

What is the federal government doing with the other 5¢ per litre that it takes from car drivers every time they pump gas? The extra 5¢ goes to a general revenue, rather than coming back to fix the roads or to help with the transit. What does the government do with this money? Is it to pay for senators' trips? Is it to pay for some kind of expense account? I do not know. The taxpayers deserve to know what happens to the other 5¢ of gas tax they pay each time they pump gasoline.

[Business of Supply, February 26th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, there is really only one taxpayer. For every dollar this person pays in taxes, 8¢ goes to the municipality. Yet the municipality has to take care of 60%, or six out of 10, infrastructure projects across Canada. They just cannot do it.

For the same taxpayer, from the same dollar, 45¢, almost half of his money, goes to the federal government. We cannot have the federal government walking away and saying that it is not its responsibility. The federal government collects the taxes. The least it could do is transfer a portion of it back to the municipalities so that they can take care of the 60% of the infrastructure that is crumbling right now. It needs $171 billion. That is the deficit in infrastructure managed by municipalities.

[Business of Supply, February 26th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, that is a good question. No, there is not one organization or municipality, from coast to coast to coast, and no level of government, that has said that it prefers a grant lottery system. They want long-term, predictable funding. They want a transfer that would help cut commute times. They need to know that three, five, or even ten years down the road, when they have started building one subway, that other subway stations will also be built.

I will give Toronto as an example of what has happened. It dug a hole on Eglinton Avenue to build a subway station. It ran out of money, so it filled up the hole, wasting millions of dollars. Now it thinks that maybe it will have some money, and it is digging the hole again. I am not kidding. It is true. Come and watch it happening on Eglinton Avenue in Toronto. Millions of dollars are being wasted. At least 15 years have been wasted. In the meantime, the commuters are waiting and waiting and are being packed in like sardines.

That is not happening just in big cities. It is also happening in small and rural municipalities. For example, Ontario rural municipalities are meeting today and tomorrow, and they met yesterday. They are talking about infrastructure, roads and drinking water. Every organization, whether a business organization, chamber of commerce, board of trade, foundation, construction company or Engineers Canada has said the same thing. They want a long-term, predictable and accountable infrastructure plan from the federal government.

[Business of Supply, February 26th, 2013]

moved:

That this House call on the government to commit in Budget 2013 to a long-term, predictable and accountable federal infrastructure plan in partnership with other levels of government, as recommended by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, in order to: (a) improve Canada's lagging productivity; (b) shorten commute times; and (c) fix Canada's crumbling infrastructure.

Mr. Speaker, across the country, getting to work on time is becoming a luxury. Congestion and overcrowded public transit make it harder and harder to get to work on time. From coast to coast, frustrated commuters tell the same stories.

In Toronto, angry office workers stand in the cold while jam-packed street cars rush by. Even if they get on, they are packed in like sardines. In Vancouver suburbs, impatient mothers who have to drop off their kids at school wait forever for a bus to arrive. In Montreal, frustrated college students are late for their classes and jobs because of delays and breakdowns in the aging Metro system.

The average commute time in the Toronto area has reached 82 minutes per day, which is far worse than New York City and Los Angeles, and Vancouver and Montreal are not doing much better. Eighty-two minutes is more than most parents get to spend with their kids playing and reading. Eighty-two minutes means a missed dinner with a partner for hard-working couples. Eighty-two minutes means less time to study and prepare for class for college students.

Traffic gridlock is costing our economy $10 billion a year, with $6 billion in the greater Toronto area alone. At $10 billion, it is more than the GDP of all three territories and P.E.I. combined. In fact, it is bigger than the budget for six provinces. It is huge. This is $10 billion that we lose every year because of gridlock and traffic jams.

For companies, it means less productivity and less competitiveness against their American counterparts. Ultimately, it means fewer jobs; 26,000 fewer jobs in the GTA alone. For parents, it means less time to see their kids grow up. For all levels of government, it means less tax revenue. Therefore, gridlock is a problem we can no longer afford.

Canada's infrastructure problems go beyond the lack of public transit and rising commute times. One out of five roads is in poor or very poor condition. That means potholes and car-sized sinkholes in Ottawa. It means damaged car suspensions. Overpasses and bridges in Montreal and Toronto are becoming unsafe. The Gardiner Expressway has rained concrete six or seven times this year alone on the traffic and pedestrians below.

There are also 200 communities struggling with backwater. The water looks cloudy or tastes and smells funny. In half of these communities, one cannot drink the water without boiling it first or one will get sick. How sad is this, given that clean water is a human right in a country that has the world's largest freshwater supply?

We have unsafe water systems and problems with the roads and bridges that we can no longer afford, and these are not isolated cases. Communities from coast to coast to coast are struggling with lack of transit, potholed roads and unsafe drinking water. They are calling for federal help. They want a long-term federal plan for infrastructure, and they are not alone. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities, representing over 2,000 municipal leaders, is calling for a long-term infrastructure plan to be included in the 2013 federal budget, and so is the Canada West Foundation, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, the Canadian Urban Transit Association, Engineers Canada, and the Canadian Construction Association.

From coast to coast to coast, union groups, organizations and municipal leaders are all calling for the same thing, which is a long-term, predictable and accountable infrastructure plan.

Why is it that the Minister of Transport does not want to listen to mayors and city councillors? Why are commuters and working families ignored by the Conservatives? Why does the minister not want to ride the Toronto subway with me at rush hour so that he can experience the crowded trains, see the commuters left behind on the platform and experience their frustration and anger over lost time?

It is curious that even before today's debate, the minister said last night that he would vote against my motion. He said that before he even listened to the motion. He said no without any debate. He said no without listening to Canadians. He said no without listening to parliamentarians. Frankly, that is contempt for the House of Commons.

Maybe I can guess the reason. Perhaps it is because Conservatives prefer to provide on-and-off funding, which frustrates cities that need predictable funding. Perhaps it is because the Conservatives want a photo op every few days, rather than a 20-year plan that would allow cities to make long-term plans. Maybe it is because they want to hand out gigantic cheques to their insider friends as a reward. Maybe it is because the Conservatives are afraid that if we have a fair distribution that uses objective criteria for funding and for measuring success, they will not be able to make decisions based on partisan considerations. That could be the reason.

The building Canada fund has been too unpredictable and too beholden to partisan interests to really help municipalities. Municipalities now have an infrastructure deficit of $171 billion. That is a huge amount of money on the shoulders of people who pay property taxes. Someone has to pay; the question is who. The people who are paying are those who pay property taxes, those on fixed income, seniors, those who really cannot afford much more. These are the ones who are shouldering this huge deficit of $171 billion. That is why municipalities want an accountable and predictable long-term funding plan. They are tired of a grant system that is used like a lottery. They want a merit-based, predictable transfer.

All the federal government has to do is listen to cities and communities across Canada that have been calling for the same thing for years. They want a federal plan with secure supports for at least 20 years, not a two-year funding cycle. That is how long it takes to develop and build and maintain a long-term infrastructure program, whether it is transit, roads or drinking water.

Our cities need funding that is predictable. Our cities need funding that is allocated in a non-partisan way, like the existing gas tax, on a per capita basis. Our cities need a plan whereby funding grows with non-political measures, such as the economy, population and ridership growth forecasts. Our cities need a plan that has clear criteria and clear targets, targets like cutting specific commute times. We know that what gets measured gets managed, gets results and gets built. Our cities need a plan based on partnership among jurisdictions so that funding can reach provincial and municipal levels of government and the private sector. Our cities and companies need a plan that encourages innovation, efficiency and sustainability so that we can make our transit system greener and unleash Canada's creative potential.

We hope that members of Parliament across the way will stand up for a better quality of life, stand up for a stronger economy and support a long-term federal infrastructure plan so that we can get Canada moving again.