Transport Committee on May 21st, 2024

[Kelly Gillis]

Provinces and territories are working together to make changes to the codes. They are the ones proposing amendments and are aware of all the discussions on the subject. We are in the process of establishing the program, which will be adopted once the provinces and territories have signed on. They have until January 1 to do so, as mentioned in the budget.

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

That's if there is an agreement, obviously.

I would like to raise another point with you. The budget mentions that you would like to see a nationwide standard lease agreement. Quebec already has a standard lease created by its government. Does your lease template already exist, or is it still up in the air?

[Kelly Gillis]

Thank you for the question.

We are currently establishing a consultation process. We will work very closely with provinces and territories to identify best practices and to determine what will be appropriate to use as a national standard within the provinces and territories. If Quebec has something excellent to use, we will propose it in our examples.

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

Thank you. I have no further questions, Mr. Chair, and I'll give the rest of my time to Mr. Morrice.

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Barsalou‑Duval.

Mr. Chair, how much time do I have?

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

You have one minute and 40 seconds, sir.

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

That's wonderful. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you again, Mr. Barsalou‑Duval.

Ms. Gillis, continuing on my quest with respect to getting more information on two-way, all-day GO train service between Kitchener and Toronto, I really appreciated time with folks on your team and the information they have provided over the last number of months.

I understand that there is an oversight committee whose responsibility is to ensure collaboration between the federal government and the provincial government. As you know, I'm looking for more accountability from the federal government on the funds that have been allocated already to get this project built. We don't have a timeline yet.

Can you at least share more about how often this group meets, the substance of those conversations and how it's working towards completion of the project?

[Kelly Gillis]

Overall, regarding our programs, we have oversight committees at senior levels of government, at the assistant deputy minister level, that meet to go over the array of projects that we have with provinces and territories. For the project you're specifically referencing, we have another committee that's at more of a working level, a senior director level, that meets with Metrolinx and the province on a quarterly basis to follow up on the progress.

It is a large, complex project that's being done in phases. They've recently met, and they'll be meeting again in two weeks to continue to follow up to see the level of progress and make sure that there's appropriate oversight for the contribution agreement that we have with them.

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Regarding those conversations of that working group committee at the director level, is part of that conversation with respect to accountability from the province when it comes to ensuring that those funds get spent in a way that has the project...?

As you know, we don't have a timeline from the province. The federal commitment was back in 2017. Is it part of the conversation from officials to ensure that as funds are being disbursed, commitments are getting made for ensuring the project will be completed?

[Kelly Gillis]

There are oversight and accountabilities for all parties. We, Metrolinx and the Ministry of Transportation Ontario are there for the discussions on the progress being made.

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Could I ask you to table the schedule for those meetings in 2024?

[Kelly Gillis]

I will follow up to get you whatever we have on the schedule, yes.

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much.

Next we have Mr. Bachrach. Mr. Bachrach, the floor is yours. You have six minutes, please.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our officials for being here for the second hour.

The community of Houston in northwestern B.C. recently got news that Canfor, a large forestry company, isn't going to rebuild the sawmill in their community, as previously promised. It's a decision that's going to have serious economic and social implications in that community. This is a community of about 3,000 people.

One key social service provider in Houston is the Dze L K'ant Friendship Centre. They're working to replace and rebuild their building, which provides services for families, seniors and elders. They provide child care, counselling and a whole suite of social services that are going to be needed even more, given the economic news. They received a funding commitment under the green and inclusive community buildings fund. However, construction cost escalations since that time mean that now they're at a point where they have to dramatically scale back the scope of the project to fit within the budget, yet they need the original project to be built. They're put in this really untenable situation.

How does Infrastructure Canada approach situations like this, when construction cost escalations outside the control of the proponent make the original project, which met the need of the community, unfeasible? Is there room to work with the proponent to ensure that the objectives of the original proposal are met?

[Kelly Gillis]

What we can do will vary, depending on the type of program that we have, as well as the stage and phase of the project and where it's at. For that particular project—although I don't know the details of it—the proponents can certainly follow up with us, and we'd be happy to work with them on determining what the options could be.

Do we have funds on the side for cost escalation? No, but what we can often do is look at different options, whether it's phasing or future opportunities. As well, within ICIP—the investing in Canada infrastructure program—we might have different opportunities, so what we can or cannot do really depends on the program as well as the stage of the project.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

I'll certainly follow up. This is the green and inclusive community buildings fund, and I think this is a situation that many proponents are facing. In this particular small community, the implications for the provision of social services are really important, particularly for the indigenous population, which is their focus, of course. I'll follow up with you on that.

To shift to transit, the minister's responses to my previous questions indicated this shift towards the permanent public transit fund and away from some of the specialized transit funds that have been in place in the past—the zero emission transit fund and the rural transit solutions fund. When you add up those targeted funds, plus the ICIP transit stream, is the permanent public transit fund, at $3 billion a year, going to be an increase beyond what those programs were providing in the past?

[Kelly Gillis]

In the investing in Canada infrastructure program—ICIP—there was approximately $20 billion for transit. Then, when we look at some of the targeted funds of $2.75 billion for zero emission, $250 million for rural, and then the active transportation fund for $400 million, that would be just under—I'm just going to add in my head—about $23 billion to $24 billion. Ten years of the permanent public transit is $30 billion, so if you look at it over a period of time, then you are looking at significant investments in permanent public transit.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Sticking with the transit theme, I was surprised to learn that the actual transit service capacity across the country has gone down. In 2022 the service capacity was 7% lower than in previous years. At a time when billions are being invested in capital, the actual ability of transit authorities to deliver transit services has decreased. How does the federal government view this challenge?

The idea here is a mode shift of getting people out of their cars and onto public transit and ensuring that people can get to work, go shopping and do these trips that they have to do, yet it seems to really be compromised by the fact that transit authorities can't provide the service with the budgets they're given. What's the role of the federal government in ensuring that those objectives are met?

[Kelly Gillis]

Investments in public transit, for many reasons that you've already stated, are very important. We've come out of an unusual time, in the country and in the world, of a pandemic, when people were not using public transit and were working from home. There were shifts on the fare box from that period of time.

We work very closely with transit authorities and communities on what their plans are for the future, and the need, as we look at a growing economy, for the mobility of our communities and for investments in permanent public transit. When we look at the capital plans for communities across the country, we see that they're significant, and I know that this particular program will help them achieve those objectives.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

You have 15 seconds.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

In 15 seconds, just to comment, it seems like the demand has rebounded but there are still transit assets that aren't in service. There are 1,700 fewer buses in service than before. In fact, there were fewer buses in service across the country in 2022 than there were in 2013, and it seems like the challenge is operating funds. The challenge isn't ridership; the demand has rebounded, but the operating support isn't there.

That's the ask: It's for the federal government to look closely at that, given the emissions reduction objectives and given all of the promises of public transit.

I understand you're not going to have time to respond, but I just wanted to give you a clear indication of where I was coming from.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, for your forbearance, as always.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Bachrach.

Finally for today, I'll turn the floor over to Mr. Rogers. I believe the audiovisual technical issues we were having have been resolved, so the floor is yours, Mr. Rogers, for six minutes, please.

[Churence Rogers, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

I apologize for that, but anyway, we're back, and I just want to say welcome to the officials.

I have a couple of questions around infrastructure in particular.

Back in early 2000 and later in 2000, I was mayor of two different municipalities. One of the issues was always about infrastructure, and particularly about rebuilding infrastructure after major storms and hurricanes. We experienced, in about a 10-year span, at least three of these, which wiped out roads and buildings, bridges and culverts, and so on and so on.

What I want to ask you, Ms. Gillis, is to explain the work that Infrastructure Canada is doing to create and invest in sustainable infrastructure that will withstand some of these storms. Also, what is currently known about the state of Canada's infrastructure, particularly infrastructure that's vulnerable to major storms and climate change and so on?

[Kelly Gillis]

That is something that we definitely focus on significantly. I like to describe it as a value chain, because we know that if we continue to build the way that we've built in the past, our infrastructure won't withstand the climate shifts that we're already living through and that we're going to live in during the future.

Infrastructure Canada has invested and worked significantly with the National Research Council, provinces and territories, and the Standards Council on resiliency and the kinds of building materials and the kind of code we should be building towards as we look at our infrastructure.

We've also been supporting climate tools through the FCM and what we're going to be releasing in the fall, so that municipalities that often have very limited staff have more capabilities to access the information and the technology that they need to understand their critical infrastructure and understand what investments need to be made.

Then, of course, we've had the disaster mitigation and adaptation fund, which has supported just over 100 projects for over a couple of billion dollars, and actually, this past Friday, more proponents were informed of their success in receiving funds through that particular program for just under a billion dollars.