TRAN Committee Report

Supplementary opinion

Report on infrastructure climate adaptation

By the office of Xavier Barsalou-Duval

Presented to the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities

October 20^th, 2023

Introduction

First, the Bloc Québécois salutes the members of the Committee as well as its staff for the professionalism they demonstrated and the work they accomplished during this study and thanks all the witnesses and citizens who contributed to the debate on the future of our infrastructure in the face of climate change.

Climate action is everyone's business, and it is a fight that must be undertaken on a global scale; however, the impacts of climate change are unique to each region and each biome. It is therefore important to call for caution in the centralization of decisions on mitigating the impacts of climate change, particularly in the Canadian constitutional context.

Legitimate federal action

The environment does not appear explicitly in the Constitutional Act of 1867, so it is through decisions of the Supreme Court that the sharing of this jurisdiction between the federal government, Quebec and the provinces was established. We are delighted to see the adoption of several recommendations proposed by our political party to help municipalities with federal infrastructure use them to address the impacts of climate change thanks to the adoption of recommendation 4:

‘’ That the Government of Canada facilitate the provision of federal assets to communities to offset the loss of infrastructure or services due to climate change. ‘’

This recommendation supports the demands of residents of the Richelieu who, for centuries, have traveled in winter on ice bridges between the two banks of the river. Climate change has in recent years led to a reduction in the ice layer on the river, to the point that today the ice bridges are no longer passable. It therefore goes without saying that the federal government listens and works in concert with local stakeholders to allow the circulation of vehicles and active transportation on the Saint-Ours dam to avoid detours exceeding 30km for residents.

Through its spending power, the federal government can also help Quebec and its municipalities carry out the work necessary to sustain infrastructure threatened by climate change. Witnesses from the municipal sector told us about the significant work needed on the aqueduct networks, it is therefore important to note the adoption of recommendations 1 and 2 made by the Bloc Québécois:

‘’ That the Government of Canada create a permanent federal funding mechanism to support and enhance the cost-effectiveness and sustainability of modern water and wastewater systems in communities of all sizes. ‘’

‘’ That the Government of Canada eases conditions for subsidies aimed at the repairs or upgrade of aqueduct systems endangered by climate change or limiting the construction of new housing. ‘’

Risk of excessive centralization

It will be important in the coming years to particularly monitor the evolution of government action for recommendation 2. Municipal stakeholders raised with concern the possibility that the federal government would add conditions to the programs that municipalities need to implement upgrades to their infrastructure. Adding a housing construction prerequisite with infrastructure funds is a bad idea, as explained by the mayor of Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Andrée Bouchard:

‘’ Currently, the main difficulty, as for all municipalities in Quebec, is linked to housing. Our vacancy rate is 0.8%. We really need to aim for densification, but the aging of our aqueduct network prevents us from doing so. ‘’[1]

Asking for housing construction conditions to access infrastructure funds would be putting the cart before the horse, by not allowing municipalities to create the conditions necessary for the densification of their urban fabric.

It is also important that the federal government stops its habit of duplicating the work already duly accomplished by the Quebec government. This trend is clearly visible in the ministerial duplication, in the second tax report that Quebecers must send to Ottawa and in the recent debates on healthcare financing, but here once again it is important to note a duplication in the recommendation 6:

‘’ That the Government of Canada, in collaboration with provinces, territories, municipalities, as well indigenous communities, undertake a comprehensive assessment of at-risk infrastructure (as reflected within municipal secondary plans), including updated flood plain mapping (as reflected within municipal official plans) and an evaluation of redundant telecommunications systems, and work towards building a national, data-based inventory of infrastructure projects to help guide future investment decisions. ‘’

Quebec has in fact already carried out recent mapping of its floodplains and presents the data on an interactive map available to all. We therefore call on the government to take note of the studies already carried out by Quebec and to instead allocate the sums to enhance the Disaster Mitigation and Adaptation Fund as prescribed by recommendation 11:

‘’ That the Government of Canada substantially increase the funding for the Disaster Mitigation and Adaptation Fund. ‘’

Conclusion

Climate change is a polycrisis, a combination of several crises that lead to climate change, that all responsible politicians recognize as one of the greatest challenges of our century. The aspect most often noted concerns greenhouse gas emissions and the warming of global temperatures that accompanies them, but the crisis also concerns the collapse of biodiversity, the acidification of the oceans, the slowing down of marine currents, the spread of new zoonotic diseases and much more. If climate action must be global, adaptation to climate change must be local as the impacts are different in each region and each biome. We therefore call on the federal government to take note of this reality and put the means on the table to enable the adaptation of infrastructure to the impacts of climate change without imposing its centralizing vision.