Transport committee  Certainly, talking from the Peace Bridge perspective, yes, absolutely. We've been talking about a trade corridor for the last 20 years. If you talk to any of the border crossing operators, I think they'll say the same thing. Absolutely there's an appetite, because we've recognize

Transport committee  I just want to follow up on my remarks earlier today. In terms of some of the questions that the committee was asking, one thing I noticed is that there needs to be a recognition that a border is a two-way street, meaning that while this committee is focused on things that happen

Transport committee  Our environmental impact study is from 2009-2010, and I can certainly provide it to the secretary of the committee. It talks about the idling of vehicles.

Transport committee  That's where it's frustrating for us, for example. There is RFID going into the U.S., but nothing coming into Canada, so people who cross the border think they can use RFID to come into Canada but can't. There are some very simple harmonization things that could be done to make t

Transport committee  From my perspective, I really believe in working or coordinating and communicating with the other departments to have a more holistic approach to the border. There's no point in spending billions of dollars to build infrastructure if the stuff on either end doesn't work, if the c

Transport committee  Correct.

Transport committee  No, it's major overkill. There is existing capacity on all of the bridges. In terms of lanes over the river, that's not the issue. The issue is what happens at either end. If we can expedite the flow of traffic.... We've done a very detailed analysis that can actually reduce the

Transport committee  Yes, we're actually familiar with it. We did some very detailed studies on that when we were looking at twinning the bridge through an environmental impact statement that was jointly operated by Canada and the United States. Again, the issue isn't the lanes over the water: it's

Transport committee  I can answer from a commercial perspective. Commercial traffic has declined over the last 20 years. Part of that has been because of the shift of trade between Canada and the U.S. in the automotive industry to Mexico and the United States, as well as receiving more goods through

Transport committee  There has been discussion about a new connecting highway from the border into the Burlington and Toronto area. That has been in the planning stages before, but that again is a provincial responsibility and not a federal one.

Transport committee  The latest information that we have from the Ontario Trucking Association is that while there may be autonomous trucks, there will always be drivers in those trucks. The driver may not physically be driving on the throughway, but when the truck gets to the border or when it gets

Transport committee  Certainly we would like more of that opportunity. We don't have it enough. We correspond mostly with CBSA and CBP in terms of the border issues. However, in terms of dealing with this—and this is what I said in my remarks—we have to break down the silos, not only within federal

Transport committee  Coming into Canada, we're probably a nine. You'll see that tomorrow. We have great facilities. Going into the U.S., we're about a five. We need to do some work on the U.S. side and we have some geographic issues there that we're trying to address by incorporating some of the pre

Transport committee  Certainly from our perspective, RFID has been around for a very long time, and it is accepted technology. The U.S. has had technology. All of their booths have been instrumented with RFID for years. They issue passport cards. When you apply for your passport, you get a wallet-si

Transport committee  Thank you. I'm the general manager of the binational Buffalo and Fort Erie Public Bridge Authority which owns and operates the Peace Bridge and the customs plazas in both Canada and the United States. The Peace Bridge is at the terminus of the Queen Elizabeth Way, which is a k