Hon. Leo Housakos (Acting Deputy Leader of the Opposition): Minister, the Government of Quebec is moving forward with construction of the third link between Quebec City and Lévis.

Your colleague Steven Guilbeault seems determined to do what he can to stymie the Legault government. The Quebec bridge is in ruins, CN doesn’t want to invest and that poses a tremendous risk to the region.

The federal government and CN have been dragging their feet for years and refuse to hand over the bridge to the Government of Quebec under acceptable conditions. Minister, I know that you’re aware of the fact that the Trudeau government is jeopardizing the economic future of the entire greater Quebec City region. When will you realize that you need to force CN to do something about the Quebec bridge? When will you tell your colleague Mr. Guilbeault to let Quebecers run the environmental process for the third link?

[English]

Hon. Omar Alghabra, P.C., M.P., Minister of Transport: Senator, our government’s partnership with provinces, including Quebec, is well documented. Our government has invested billions of dollars of key infrastructure projects in the province of Quebec, including in public transportation.

Usually, any project goes through the process it is expected to go through, whether it is through negotiation between the province and the federal government on funding or the environmental impact assessment.

You’re asking me to speak about a particular project that will go and is going through the normal process that projects typically go through between the province and the federal government.

Hon. Tony Loffreda: Welcome, minister.

It is important, so I would like to further discuss high-frequency rail, or HFR, and the government’s commitment to building a new eco-friendly transportation infrastructure project between Toronto and Quebec City.

As I understand it, the latest development in that project was a request for expressions of interest in March 2022 to seek feedback from interested parties on the design, build, finance, operation and maintenance of the project. More specifically, can you provide us with an update on the information you have collected so far and how that information is being leveraged to inform the next steps of the procurement process?

Additionally, the government thinks HFR could be fully operational in the early 2030s. Have you encountered, or do you expect to encounter, any delays? Do you think it will cost $12 billion to build, or have inflation and labour shortages affected your estimates?

Hon. Omar Alghabra, P.C., M.P., Minister of Transport: Senator, thank you for that question and for giving me yet another opportunity to talk about how important this project is for Canadians and our government.

As for your question on the expression of interest, today, in fact, Transport Canada was supposed to release, and it hopefully did release, a summary of the information and the lessons collected from interested private-sector partners. That information will inform the next step of the request for quote — RFQ — which we hope will be issued in the coming months. So the plan continues as expected.

I continue to hope and plan that the project will be operational in the early 2030s.

The one thing I will refrain from doing is putting a dollar figure on it, only because there are still a lot of variables that have not been settled yet, based on the contractors and the discussions we’re having with municipalities and with Indigenous communities.

So I’m unable to give you a dollar figure, but the commitment is that this project will proceed. Today, we would have released the summary of the input we received from private partners, and we would be happy to share it with you, senator.

[Translation]

Hon. Omar Alghabra, P.C., M.P., Minister of Transport: Senator, the entire world suffered dramatic impacts caused by the pandemic and public health measures. Canadians saw airports around the world deal with congestion and cancelled flights. I don’t say this to excuse what happened. I say this to state facts. Of course, I found it unacceptable and frustrating to hear the stories that I heard coming out of Toronto Pearson Airport and other Canadian airports. It was unacceptable. I went to work and our government took the matter extremely seriously.

As you know, airports and airlines are independent organizations and corporations that make their own decisions. Having said that, we went straight to action and we worked with airports to increase hiring and to address bottlenecks. Today, the situation is much better than it used to be, but our work continues. As I stated to another senator in my response, there will be a summit soon that will bring together airlines, airports and other key stakeholders to learn from the lessons that we witnessed and to ensure not only that it never happens again, but to see what else we can do to improve the efficiency, competitiveness and safety of our sector.

Hon. Omar Alghabra, P.C., M.P., Minister of Transport: Senator, let me start by saying I share that dream, and I hope we see that service become a reality.

Intercity public transit is a provincial jurisdiction. For example, in Ontario, we have the GO service that provides train services that connects cities. If the Province of Alberta intends to build such a project, rest assured that our federal government will be at the table working collaboratively with the Province of Alberta at figuring out how we can, together, make that dream a reality.

Hon. Leo Housakos (Acting Deputy Leader of the Opposition): Minister, residents of Georgina, Ontario have raised concerns with your department about a proposed aerodrome in their communities, sometimes referred to as the Baldwin East Aerodrome. They are concerned about the legitimacy of the proposal and the likelihood it is an elaborate scheme to get around provincial laws to dump fill, a practice that is very lucrative and has taken place at aerodromes elsewhere in the region.

Given the area’s proximity to developments in the GTA, the public feedback period closed in March, yet residents have still not been given any update from Transport Canada. Minister, can you confirm whether you have approved the Georgina aerodrome proposal, and if so, could you give the reasons for the decision that has been made?

Hon. Omar Alghabra, P.C., M.P., Minister of Transport: Senator, as you know, the CTA is an independent quasi-judicial body. They have received, to your point, an unprecedented number of complaints borne out of the situation this past summer.

The situation right now, clearly, is that CTA needs help. I have met with the chair of the CTA just recently, first, wanting to get briefed by her on the situation, the volume of complaints and the resources that are needed. Our government is now working with the CTA on making sure they have the resources they need.

This has been unprecedented, senator. The pandemic is a once‑in-a-century thing that happened, and we can see that the rest of the world continues to be grappling with it. Our government, while we need to understand the root causes of what happened, we’re not shirking our responsibilities in addressing this issue and on working with partners, because it is important to us that Canadians are serviced well.

Let me just take a moment to say that no Conservative government in the past has put anything in place to protect passenger rights. While there is more work that is needed, it was our government that stepped up to offer this protection.

I welcome your input on how we can strengthen these regulations, but I’m also proud of the work that we’ve done.

Hon. Donald Neil Plett (Leader of the Opposition): Minister, backlogs and complaints seem to be a bit of a theme in your department. According to a report from July, members of the Canadian aviation industry are frustrated with backlogs at Transport Canada that are making it difficult for new and existing pilots to get their licences and medical certificates. Certifications that should only take 30 to 40 days are repeatedly taking a year or longer. To top it off, members are claiming that Transport Canada doesn’t answer the phone, return calls or respond to emails.

Minister, at a time when airlines are scrambling daily to find pilots to fly planes, how do you justify this failure? Again, could you tell us when this backlog will be cleared? Surely this isn’t the fault of the Conservative government.

Hon. Omar Alghabra, P.C., M.P., Minister of Transport: I’ll refrain. Senator, thanks for the question.

Again, the issue of disruptions have been witnessed across the economy, not just at Transport Canada, and Canadians know that. I know some partisans have a vested interest in putting the blame on the government, and so be it, but Canadians are smart enough to know that the last couple of years have been hard on our economy and our workers. Our government was there to do everything we could, including — and let me talk about the medical licensing process for pilots. I’ve been personally involved in this.

We have put in place immediate measures to relieve and prioritize commercial pilots. Commercial pilots are able to receive their certificates within the allotted timeline. Yes, some recreational pilots and other types of aviation professionals have experienced more delays, but it is necessary given the volume. After two years of low activity, pilots needed to renew their licences and there was volume. We have prioritized commercial pilots.

If you have a specific case, senator, that you would like to follow up on, I would be more than happy to look into it for you.

The Hon. the Speaker pro tempore: Honourable senators, when shall this bill be read the second time?

(On motion of Senator Gold, bill placed on the Orders of the Day for second reading two days hence.)

[English]