Minister Garneau announces Transportation 2030 to improve Canada’s transportation system

Minister of Transport Marc Garneau

Government of Canada

Canadian Minister of Transport Marc Garneau announced a new strategy Nov. 3 aimed at improving the nation’s transportation system.

Minister Garneau presented the plan, titled Transportation 2030, at the Chamber of Commerce of Metropolitan Montréal to more than 550 stakeholders from throughout Canada.

“This plan addresses the needs for the future of transportation in Canada. It will move our transportation system forward and support the economic growth of our great country for the benefit of all Canadians, and particularly the middle-class and those looking to join it,” he told the audience.

Representatives say the plan is a result of public consultations with Canadians and various other stakeholders since April 2016 that allowed him to consider the nation’s transportation needs for the long-term.

The plan focuses on the five themes Minister Garneau discussed with residents and stakeholders, representatives say. The government of Canada says it will:

Build a safer transportation system by:

• Moving up its review of the Railway Safety Act from 2018 to 2017 to further improve railway safety.
• Introducing requirements for locomotive voice and video recorders to be used during accident investigations.

Reduce air pollution and embrace new technologies by:

• Continuing to work with provincial governments on a Pan-Canadian Framework that includes a strategy for transportation in Canada in order to reduce carbon pollution by 30 percent from 2005 levels by 2030.
• Investing in areas such as smart grids, electricity transmission, renewable power and smart cities plans that will lead to cleaner transportation technology.
• Supporting the development of regulatory framework for emerging technologies, such as connected and automated vehicles, in order to support a broader strategy on innovation.
• Canada has also already invested $62 million in electric car charging and low-emission fueling stations.

Improve the performance and reliability of the transportation system to get products to markets by:

• Investing $10.1 billion for transportation infrastructure to help eliminate bottlenecks and building more robust trade corridors.
• Pursuing legislation that will allow reciprocal penalties in service level agreements between railway companies and their customers.
• During the coming months, several other specific initiatives will be announced to implement these key objectives.