Transport committee  I couldn't agree more. The Hamilton Port Authority is a great example. Based on the current legislation, we have a borrowing limit of $45 million, so there's no possible way we could even borrow money from the Infrastructure Bank at $100 million. Effectively, it would be illegal, so I totally agree that they need a more flexible approach to creating a two-tiered system, potentially even moving the Infrastructure Bank into more of a loan guarantee type of role.

Transport committee  We've always chosen to respect the provincial rules, believing that this was the right commitment to being a good neighbour. In a lot of situations, we lease out the land to a third party. That tenant is obligated to follow those provincial rules, as opposed to a project developed by us.

Transport committee  It's still in discussion, I think.

Transport committee  To facilitate modal shift, you also need that interface capacity where you're able to actually handle the cargo. We see a shortage of overall capacity for creating these multimodal hubs. We certainly see the potential for it. We see that it exists in the region and all of southern Ontario, but we haven't quite seen the proper zoning go through to say, “Let's dedicate this piece of property and these investments to create that shift.”

Transport committee  In Hamilton, we haven't seen any investments at this phase. Certainly, in looking at some of the other projects, I think Thunder Bay has a good project to develop some infrastructure for covered storage. We've seen a few other announcements out in the west. When the fund was announced, it was oversubscribed by some crazy amount—like 20 or 25 times.

Transport committee  We have made an application, yes.

Transport committee  In my comments, I talked about Niagara having this potential of a lot of industrial properties and communities that are less adjacent to them. There is a neat opportunity to develop new port facilities in the Niagara region. Some of those lands could be owned by Transport Canada or by a third party or municipalities, potentially even the region.

Transport committee  We certainly do, at the Hamilton Port Authority. Looking into the availability of the property, the appetite for the region and the potential for the region—these all play a critical role. As Bruce pointed out, there's probably not the right integration in Niagara yet with rail and marine at this particular moment in time, but there's the potential to develop that.

Transport committee  I suppose there could be a point. One barrier today, of course, is the cost of ensuring that best practices can be implemented. I applaud the national trade corridors fund and the work that's being done in that area, because that gives an opportunity to invest in new assets that will dramatically reduce the impact for the neighbourhoods and the port.

Transport committee  One of the best ways that we collaborate is through the Association of Canadian Port Authorities. That allows us to share best practices. That's a formal association out of Ottawa. All 18 ports come together, and key priorities around sustainability, the interface with the community, and what best practices exist for minimizing the environmental impact are shared and exchanged.

Transport committee  Dust is one of the biggest issues we deal with in the interface between the community and the port authority. Through our work in developing a sustainability model, the biggest single point the neighbourhoods were bringing up was dust. We're putting that as one of our key areas in building integration.

Transport committee  I'm very familiar with Gaétan. We spend a lot of time collaborating between the two ports to share best practices. We've been very lucky to have him as a resource. The environmental standards are not 100% aligned, quite simply because in Ontario, the Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change Resources ultimately is where we would apply for our ECA certification to operate the projects.

Transport committee  In terms of the existing facilities—to your first point—the collaboration in Hamilton has certainly grown exponentially in the last five years. We now collaborate with the city on almost all new projects that border on residential neighbourhoods. We ensure that there is a source of input, and we do whatever we can to make investments to minimize the impact and to allow the two areas to work together.

Transport committee  Do you mind if I comment on that question a bit as well? What we're seeing, certainly in Hamilton, is that, obviously, the ports offer a gateway to international destinations, versus just North American destinations and overseas destinations. The strong port network probably protects us from some of the potential volatility that would exist in the NAFTA discussions going on today.

Transport committee  Thanks, Vance. The first question you brought up was about the HPA role. As we mentioned, the Hamilton Port Authority has been very successful in creating what we call a multimodal industrial hub. We believe we can bring those same skills into the Niagara region in starting to develop some of the available properties here.