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Finance committee That's a really important question. We do have, for example, current gas tax programs, building Canada programs, that are done on a criterion such as population, or other criterion, such as ridership for transit. I don't think that the infrastructure agency we're talking about should have a mandate to spread projects across the country based on population or making sure that every province gets a project.
May 16th, 2017Committee meeting
Andy Manahan
Finance committee I want to provide one example, because it's really important. I've been in touch with various people in the U.S. The investors down there, if they're doing a transit project.... Because of the sharing economy—car-sharing, where people take passengers to stations, let's say—nobody is investing in parking structures right now.
May 16th, 2017Committee meeting
Andy Manahan
Finance committee An Armani gap.
May 16th, 2017Committee meeting
Andy Manahan
Finance committee I would add that the operating component isn't critical. The maintenance component is. Going back to the U.K. in the 1980s when the train systems became privatized, there were agreements with the unions there that those folks would keep their jobs. I think up to a point, maintain is important.
May 16th, 2017Committee meeting
Andy Manahan
Finance committee I agree. Yes, that's a good one. It's actually a great example.
May 16th, 2017Committee meeting
Andy Manahan
Finance committee I did provide some comments with respect to Metrolinx. I think that separation of church and state is really important for this organization. It really bothers me that there will be an opportunity, for example, for the entire board to be pulled, or something like that. That happened in Metrolinx around the 2009-10 period.
May 16th, 2017Committee meeting
Andy Manahan
Finance committee I was going to respond to that if there's a minute.
May 16th, 2017Committee meeting
Andy Manahan
Finance committee I'm familiar with that project. It was a foreign firm, a Spanish firm, and Minister Murray was the infrastructure and transportation minister then. When he heard about it, he was very strong in terms of getting those girders replaced. Obviously, these things go through the courts.
May 16th, 2017Committee meeting
Andy Manahan
Finance committee Yes, I've read the recent media about the changing circumstances. I think the view we have is that true arm's length is much better than veto power, or recall, or second-guessing about whether an evaluation was done correctly. That's our view. You can do that with other kinds of infrastructure programs, but this bank should be sacrosanct that way.
May 16th, 2017Committee meeting
Andy Manahan
Finance committee Sure.
May 16th, 2017Committee meeting
Andy Manahan
Finance committee Thank you, Chair Easter, vice-chairs, and members of this committee. My name is Andy Manahan. I am the executive director of the Residential and Civil Construction Alliance of Ontario, and I have been in that position for about 11 years. Obviously, we are a provincial association so this is a rare opportunity for me to speak in Ottawa and I really appreciate it.
May 16th, 2017Committee meeting
Andy Manahan
Finance committee On the technology, I'm not an expert, but I did talk to this group I mentioned to you earlier, and they have done some testing in urban canyon environments, and sometimes GPS bounces off the building walls. So there are some difficulties, but from my understanding they're getting to the point where it's quite accurate.
October 21st, 2009Committee meeting
Andy Manahan
Finance committee We didn't get specifically into that, but I mentioned earlier that we talked about bundling of bridges, and what we looked at was, in the U.S., the state of Missouri. They had put out an RFP to rehabilitate over 800 of their bridges. That didn't go so well because I think there was an underpricing.
October 21st, 2009Committee meeting
Andy Manahan
Finance committee There is a third way that I refer to in terms of the transportation modelling, and that's user pay. So that is indirectly another tax.
October 21st, 2009Committee meeting
Andy Manahan
Finance committee Let me give you an example. This glass of water here probably costs about 1.5¢, and that's paid through water rates. If you increase water rates by 10% as they're doing--actually, it's 9%--every year in Toronto, people really don't blink about that. So there are other things--
October 21st, 2009Committee meeting
Andy Manahan