The pursuit of a truly national and comprehensive transportation strategy appears to be back on Ottawa's political agenda.
Should the nation's transportation and logistics stakeholders be enthused or just shrug it off as yet another feeble attempt to tackle an issue that so far has proved beyond Ottawa's comprehension?
News of Ottawa's regained interest in transportation surfaced at a summer meeting of premiers during which the nation's provincial leaders expressed serious concern that absent or aging highway systems and congestion on key routes to airports, ports and border crossings are eroding Canada's ability to compete in the global economy - great observation, albeit a few years late.
Is it likely anything will come of this? Premier Campbell of British Columbia, premier Hamm of Nova Scotia, and premier Handley of the Northwest Territories are leading the development of a national strategy, which they say will be multimodal and inclusive of all regions. These designated premiers are to work with provincial and territorial transportation ministers and bring this strategy to all premiers in November of this year for further discussion.
While having premiers directly involved is a positive sign indicating Ottawa is willing to work across the broad front necessary for dealing with transportation issues, the success of their mission, I believe, will depend on their willingness to ask the tough questions Ottawa has avoided for years.
And I would suggest starting with the question Robert Ballantyne, president of the Canadian Industrial Transportation Association, posed at Canada's National Transportation Summit, also held earlier this summer: "We fought the entire Second World War and Canada built the world's fourth largest military organization in less than six years. Why can't we build a river crossing in less than 13 years," Ballantyne asked, referring to the fact that there has been a recognized need for a new road bridge or tunnel between Windsor and Detroit for at least five years but it could be 2013 before the necessary infrastructure is in place.
It's a question that places the situation in historical perspective and gets to the root of many of our infrastructure-related problems. Why can't we as a country no longer pull off what we once could?
The same kind of question could be asked about our domestic highway infrastructure which, according to one influential study published last year, is crumbling under an accumulated annual deficit (between the amount needed to properly maintain or replace existing infrastructure as well as support growth and the money that is actually being spent) of somewhere between $50 billion and $125 billion. The Greater Toronto area alone, the report stated, suffers an annual estimated loss of about $2 billion from congestion and delays in shipping. The same question could be asked about our inability to properly fund our ports even though they serve as the front line in our ability to prosper as an export nation and to maintain our lucrative position as a transhipment hub for U.S.-bound goods.
When it comes to issues of national importance why do we shuffle our feet when we once ran?
Sure the transportation issues we face may be more complex than they may have been in the past. But that simply means understanding that transportation planning and investing can't be conducted through separate silos, be they modal or government silos, and adopting a concentrated effort on cutting through bureaucratic red tape. The architects of our Second World War military operation in the 40s and of our initial large infrastructure projects in the 50s would have faced similar challenges.
Why did they succeed where we are failing, particularly when our study and understanding of transportation issues is that much more sophisticated?
The truth is inescapable. As Mr. Ballantyne suggested, there is a leadership gap in managing our transportation infrastructure needs. To be effective a transportation strategy must be comprehensive, multi-modal and visionary. The federal government needs to rise above provincial, municipal and modal squabbling. It must look beyond the short-term and politically expedient projects which have sucked so much funding away from transportation infrastructure spending in recent years. In short Ottawa must wake to the fact it is the most obvious leadership candidate in resolving Canada's transportation problems and get on with the job.