Our Silent National Crisis: Canada's Highways at the Crossroads

Verity Craig, Managing Director, CV Management, and Director, The Empire Club of Canada; Leo Papageorge, Grade 12 Student, North Toronto Collegiate Institute; Rev. Bill Middleton, Armour Heights Presbyterian Church; J. Crawford Reid, Director, CAA National Board; David Kingsland, President, Newland Group; Deputy Chief Kim Derry, Toronto Police Service; Rev. Dr. John Niles, MSM, Rector, St. Andrew's United Church, Markham, and First Vice-President and President-Elect, The Empire Club of Canada; William E. Stow, Chair, CAA National Board; Ken Ogilvy, Executive Director, Pollution Probe; and Jim Sprott, Director, Relationship Management, Affinity Markets, Manulife Financial.

Introduction by William Whittaker

Automobiles and highways have been part of our North American folklore almost from the time the automobile first came into commercial production. With songs such as "Come away with me Lucille in my merry Oldsmobile" of the early 1900s to Dinah Shore's "See the USA in your Chevrolet" or its Canadianized version "See the broad highway in your Chevrolet" of the 1950s to Bruce Coburn's "Going down the road" of the 1970s to Tom Cochrane's "Life is a highway," automobile travel is part of our culture.

Motor vehicle production has been a significant part of Canada's and Ontario's economy for the past 60 years and our past speakers have reflected this fact. We have had 15 people from the auto industry address us in that time ranging from Charles Wilson, the 1950's President of General Motors and the author of that infamous quote, "What is good for General Motors is good for America" to Henry Ford the Second and latterly Dieter Zetsche, the current Chair of the Management Board of Daimler Chrysler. However, we have never had a speech about the state of our highways, which Mr. Flewelling will speak to us about today.

Media comment about an Empire Club speech topic is generally made after the speech is delivered, rarely before. However, this morning Michael Hlinka, CBC Radio One's economic affairs commentator, referred to our speaker today and spoke extensively about the need for more investment in our highways. Mr. Flewelling's topic has stuck a chord.

Originally piecemeal in its approach, highway development in North America received a major boost in the 1950s with the development of the 70,000 km. Interstate Highway System in the United States. There, it is possible to drive more than 4,000 kilometres from the east coast to the west coast and more than 2,000 kilometres from our border to the Mexican border on wide, safe roads that have no traffic signals and no stop signs. In fact, if you didn't have to stop for gasoline or sleep, you could drive almost anywhere in the United States without stopping at all.

In 1919, a young army officer named Dwight Eisenhower took part in the first crossing of the United States by army vehicles. It was not a good trip. There were problems with thick mud, ice and mechanical difficulties and it took them 62 days to reach San Francisco from Washington, D.C. Poetic justice, but in 1956, as President of the United States, Dwight Eisenhower signed the legislation creating the federal Interstate Highway System.

The Interstate Highway System has been an important part of the United States's economic growth during the past 50 years. Experts believe that trucks using the system carry about 75 per cent of all products sold in the United States. Jobs and new business have been created near busy interstate highways all across the United States.

Canada's highways have a different history of development given the political strength of its provincial governments, which have jurisdiction over highways and the fact that our population is strung out along our long southern border. Our one national federal provincial highway, the Trans Canada Highway, was approved in 1949, opened in 1962 and was completed in 1973. While the longest national highway in the world at 7,800 km., it is a far cry from the U.S. Interstate System of four-lane limited-access freeways. Five years ago, the Canadian government considered funding an infrastructure project to upgrade the Trans Canada Highway to a freeway but the provinces preferred the money be spent on improving vital trade routes and border crossings with the United States. Stephen Harper, during the recent election campaign, announced that a Conservative government would invest $2 billion over five years to improve our highways and that such a program would be "permanent."

All the more reason for the Canadian Automobile Association, as a national organization, to keep the focus on highway development and safety throughout Canada. The CAA is a federation of nine automotive clubs serving 4.8 million members through 130 offices across Canada and Mr. Flewelling is its national President.

A graduate of Carleton University and a 25-year member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Ontario, David Flewelling joined the CAA in 1995 as Vice-President, Finance and Corporate Affairs, becoming President in 2001.

Mr. Flewelling is active on the issue of traffic safety, both internationally and nationally. He is a member of the World Council for Mobility and the Automobile and of the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile and is the Past President of FIA's North American Region.

He holds the positions of Trustee and Secretary for the American Automobile Association Foundation for Traffic Safety and is a director of the Traffic Injury Research Foundation in Ottawa.

Please join me in welcoming David Flewelling, President of the Canadian Automobile Association, to our podium today.

David Flewelling

Good afternoon. I would like to take a moment to thank Manulife Financial for their kind sponsorship today.

It's a great pleasure to be speaking at the Empire Club, which has a history as long as that of the Canadian Automobile Association (CAA). Both organizations were founded in 1903. This is a place where future public policy is taken out for a test drive, so to speak, and I am honoured to join that great tradition.

If my remarks today contain the occasional driving metaphor, you will forgive me. Our organization represents 4.8 million Canadian motorists and travellers, and I myself am passionate about motoring. It's an activity so tightly woven into our daily lives that we tend to take it for granted.

Let me give you a personal example.

I grew up in the sixties. Like many of you here today, my family vacation often involved a road trip to see the country first-hand. By the time I was 12 years old, I had visited eight provinces, sitting in the back seat of my father's 1961 Pontiac Bonneville. From this, I derived a personal attachment to Canada that you couldn't possibly get from looking down through an airplane window.

While the sixties may be long gone, the automobile is still unsurpassed as a way to experience the rich diversity of our land--to see first light on the cliffs of Newfoundland or a lingering sunset from a beach on Vancouver Island. The view from the road is still king.

However, these days, the automobile has come to be seen by many politicians as a cross between a cash cow and a scapegoat. The flow of fuel excise taxes into general revenue coffers is welcomed, while the automobile itself is blamed for a host of ills. Call it the Canadian public-policy edition of the hybrid vehicle. Which brings me to the crux of my remarks today. Canada's National Highway System is at a crossroads. We can either invest in it now, or lose it forever.

For so many years, our National Highway System has been so neglected by Canadian public-policy makers that most Canadians may wonder if such a system even exists. Well--it does.

The National Highway System is 38,000 kilometres long, linking our communities from coast to coast. This is not simply a matter of kilometres of asphalt. Our highways are linked to our nation's prosperity. Four-fifths of Canada's trade, about $480 billion annually, moves across our highways.

A high-quality National Highway System and a better border-crossing infrastructure are both as essential to our economy as is, say, a reliable supply of energy.

Our highways are instrumental to ensuring the health and safety of Canadians as they travel, work, and go about their day. Upgrading our highways would benefit our health-care system by reducing the number of fatalities and injuries caused by unsafe highways.

And, we cannot ignore the effect that the state of our highways has on the environment. Improving our roads would go a long way towards reaching our clean-air objectives.

The good of our economy, our health and safety, and our environment are the reasons that our federal leaders must commit now to investing in our highways.

Just how bad are our highways? In 1998, the Council of Ministers Responsible for Transportation concluded that 38 per cent of the National Highway System was deficient and substandard.

With so little investment since then, we can only imagine what that number has reached now.

It was not always so mistreated. The Trans-Canada Highway Act of 1949 set out a bold plan and shared federal-provincial sustained funding for a roadway that would become our second National Dream. Construction began the next year, and the Trans-Canada Highway was officially opened in 1962.

For those of you old enough to remember, that year the world came to the brink over the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Toronto Maple Leafs won the Stanley Cup. I leave it to you to decide which event was more significant.

The sixties ushered in the era of personal mobility. For the first time, the vast majority of Canadians could go anywhere, anytime. There was tremendous growth in suburbia as people sought a better lifestyle.

Now companies are also relocating in droves to suburban communities.

Our way of life--of working, and how we get there--is changing.

If the sixties was the Golden Age of Mobility, then--given the corrosive condition of our roads--the decade we are in must surely be the Iron Age.

In commemorating the opening of the Trans-Canada Highway, historian Edwin Guillet had this to say: "Canada could start her second century with a new tie... a unity based on road and wheel."

Forty years later, Guillet's grand vision has sadly faded. Our love affair with personal mobility may be more passionate than ever, but the highways upon which this depends are in crisis.

We have reached a breaking point. Our highways now face a $22-billion maintenance deficit. Our federal governments, one after another, have failed to invest in this national strategic asset. If we don't act now to repair our existing highways, we could move into an era in which the required investment to rebuild them would be so huge that it would--by absolute necessity--pre-empt many other government priorities.

Now I am well aware that simply declaring our highway system to be in crisis is not the stuff that will mobilize federal politicians to act. But while the issue may not be a burning one for our politicians, it is a simmering pot coming to a boil for the public.

Our annual survey, just completed by Decima Research, found that 60 per cent of Canadians say their highways are getting worse. Canadians also think that highways are the most important infrastructure issue facing the federal government today.

What seems to be missing for federal politicians is a solid connection between Canada's priorities--health care, the economy and the environment--and the state of our highways. Today I'm going to help make that connection.

What if I told you that the health and safety of Canadians are being needlessly put at risk, that precious health-care resources are being unnecessarily strained? That should get our attention.

In 2004, 225,000 Canadians were injured in traffic collisions--more than 600 people every day of the year. About 17,000 of these were serious injuries requiring at least a day's worth of hospitalization. Another 2,700 lost their lives.

The economic toll of this carnage is estimated at $25 billion annually--two and a half per cent of our GDP.

We should not be complacent about preventable death and injury, just because they occur on our roads.

Public awareness campaigns have been instrumental in ensuring motorists are aware of their role in road safety.

Vehicle manufacturers have made great strides in safety innovations.

It's obvious what the final piece of this puzzle is: we need safer drivers, in safer vehicles, on safer roads.

It isn't simply an issue of our health and safety. The lack of investment in our National Highway System is an increasing threat to our standard of living.

I've already mentioned the importance of highways to our trade: congested, substandard highways are slowing down the movement of goods to airports, rail terminals, ports and U.S. markets.

The bright side is that investments in infrastructure can be directly tied to prosperity. A study by Stats Can found that infrastructure investments between 1961 and 2000 were the source of 18 per cent of the gains in overall productivity during that period.

Then there is tourism. Most visitors come here by car, or rent one when they arrive. If they are delayed at the border, or get stuck in traffic around the big cities, or find themselves on poorly maintained highways, they take notice and they don't come back. That hurts a sector that brings in $57 billion in spending, $15 billion in taxes and employs more than 600,000 Canadians.

Our neighbours down south recognize the importance of their highway system. Last year, the U.S. Congress committed $286 billion over six years on highway renewal. The European Union has made a similar commitment.

Still, Canada has no national highway plan--no consistent vision, no policy, no sustained funding, no national standards for our highways.

As if threats to our health and safety and our standard of living weren't enough to spike your blood pressure, what if I were to tell you about a threat to our environment and efforts at energy conservation?

As Torontonians, you know first-hand that when vehicles in congested traffic situations brake and accelerate over and over, they use more fuel and emit more pollutants. With better-maintained highways, we could save as much as 236 million litres of fuel a year and make an immediate reduction in greenhouse gas and smog-forming compounds.

Better roads will increase the life of our vehicles, and reduce the number of tyres in our landfills.

Allow me to add one more issue.

Most of us hope to be aging drivers one day, and some of us will get there sooner than others. Mobility defines freedom and quality of life in our senior years. Older drivers, even those who are completely fit to drive, have special needs. Poorly maintained or designed highways, poor signage or bad lighting adds to their difficulties. Wouldn't it make good sense to upgrade our highways to meet the needs of Canada's growing aging population--in turn making the roads safer for all motorists?

The state of our National Highway System has profound implications for our health and safety, for our quality of life, for our environment, and for our personal mobility, now and as we grow older. Yet, in the immortal words of Rodney Dangerfield, our highway system "can't get no respect."

There are a couple of reasons for this.

Highway renewal is caught up in the tug-of-war between Ottawa and the provinces that defines politics in Canada. The responsibility for highways rests at the provincial level, yet our federal government collects federal fuel tax revenues.

Then, when it comes to infrastructure spending, governments understand what they can sell politically. An expenditure on a new bridge is far more popular than repairing or maintaining an existing bridge. Eighty per cent of infrastructure spending at all three levels of government is devoted to new infrastructure, leaving only 20 per cent to repair what we already have. That is not sustainable.

Even though Canadians place a high priority on roadway improvement, fuel excise taxes are unpopular. The Economist Magazine, describing British motorists, shed light on this seeming contradiction: "Fuel and car taxes are unpopular because the government earns far more from them than it spends on roads."

This is true in Canada as well. Our federal government only spends between 2 per cent and 7 per cent of the fuel excise tax that it collects on highway improvement. The rest goes into general revenues. With the new cities agenda now endorsed by the Conservatives, half of the federal fuel tax will go to municipalities. This is good for the cities; they deserve a break. But that still leaves half the fuel excise tax that could be redirected towards roadway improvement. That's $2.5 billion per year.

By doing so, the federal government would be enacting sound public policy in four ways:

First, they would be spending taxes taken from motorists on infrastructure used by motorists. This enhances accountability in taxation--a concept that has become almost quaint.

Second, Canadians would finally see that their taxes bring better roads, and direct benefits: reducing their fuel costs, cutting vehicle maintenance costs, saving travel time and, most importantly, reducing their risk of injury or death.

Third, investing fuel excise taxes in highways addresses the federal-provincial fiscal imbalance, which is a high priority for all governments.

And fourth, Ottawa would be joining hands with the provinces on a project that enables Canadians to experience their own country.

By committing to a vision for our highways, the new government will be building national unity--in the tradition of our post-World War Two governments who built the Trans-Canada Highway through a legacy of public infrastructure.

There are encouraging signs that the government is heading in this direction.

During the election campaign, Prime Minister Harper said: "Infrastructure is a crucial investment in our economic productivity and quality of life. ...To harness our economic potential, Canada must address its national infrastructure deficit."

I'm also encouraged by the amalgamation of several portfolios into the Ministry of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, as well as the appointment of Lawrence Cannon as Minister. With his experience in provincial and municipal infrastructure, he seems to be the right person to take up the challenge of national infrastructure renewal.

To guide the Minister along his way, CAA has developed a five-point action plan:

One. The federal government must see highways as an investment in the health, safety and productivity of Canadians, not as a discretionary expense.

Two. Recognizing that our National Highway System is a strategic asset, the government must implement a national highway policy to ensure that our roads and highways are safe, efficient and environmentally responsible.

Three. The government needs to set funding priorities to bring the National Highway System up to an optimal standard and provide for future needs as well.

Four. We need investment in the roads of tomorrow by increasing funding for research into intelligent transportation systems.

Five. The government must encourage environmentally responsible driving through tax incentives for fuel-efficient and hybrid vehicles, public awareness campaigns and funding for road improvements to reduce congestion.

So far I've spoken to you about Canada's regression from a Golden Age of Mobility to an Iron Age, and suggested how we can reclaim today what we have lost.

Now I'd like to paint a picture of what the future could look like for our roadway system.

It's a Friday. Because of a planned weekend trip, I am using my hybrid car instead of local transit.

The journey is smooth because my city is using Intelligent Transportation Systems--traffic lights activated by sensors in the road, real time electronic signage, and timed entrance ramps--to help ease the flow of traffic.

I pick up my wife and we continue on to Quebec's Eastern Townships. Driving through Ottawa, we notice the lack of transport trucks. Now, the vast majority of commercial traffic has been diverted by a ring road, avoiding the centre core of the city.

We notice that the roadway system is properly designed and maintained--well lit, gradual, not sharp, curves, wider shoulders and easy-to-read signage. The highway actually makes our journey safer.

Thanks to tax incentives, we also see that there are a lot of other energy-efficient vehicles on the road.

When we leave the divided highway, traffic continues to be moving well--and safely--due to the "two-plus-one" highway. The highway is three lanes wide and every two kilometres the lanes switch back and forth from two to one, allowing slower traffic to be overtaken in one direction and then the other.

The distinguishing safety characteristic of the two-plus-one is the barrier system that prevents passing on the one-lane section.

Well--that's a brief look at what is possible. Now we need to consider how we can pay for these roads.

The status quo--ignoring the issue--is not an option. One thing our federal government cannot do is remain frozen in the headlights.

The federal government must commit to investing the remainder of the fuel excise tax into our highways now. They must also recognize that fuel excise taxes will be a declining revenue source. You can't siphon as much tax out of the ever-increasing number of fuel-efficient vehicles.

We need to look for--and be open to--other alternatives.

So, we may see more public/private partnerships or P3s to finance highways.

I was shocked to discover recently that Canadian pension funds are seeking out infrastructure projects overseas, instead of investing at home--in part, because it is easier to do so.

Better highways can be our future. We can move forward to a world-class highway system that unites our country or watch our National Highway System deteriorate beyond repair.

Canadians have already said they want to move forward. Canadians--who use roads and highways every day to get to work and to get together. Canadians, like you and like me, who first discovered the wonder of this country from a road-trip in their parent's 1961 Pontiac Bonneville.

The time for action is now.

Thank you very much.

The appreciation of the meeting was expressed by Rev. Dr. John Niles, MSM, Rector, St. Andrew's United Church, Markham, First Vice-President and President-Elect, The Empire Club of Canada.