Good afternoon. I would like to acknowledge that we are gathered today on the traditional territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe peoples.

Thank you for inviting me to speak about the national trade corridors fund.

I am Stéphanie Hébert, and I am the assistant deputy minister of programs. I am responsible for the oversight and delivery of the national trade corridors fund.

I am pleased to be accompanied today by Joshua LaRocque, DG responsible for the transportation infrastructure programs at Transport Canada.

As you may know, the fund is key to ensuring that Canada’s supply chain functions effectively.

The national trade corridors fund supports projects that are designed to help improve Canada's supply chain, making it more seamless, efficient and resilient to disruption. Since its inception in 2017, Transport Canada has launched seven calls for proposals focused on the following themes: enabling the movement of goods along trade corridors, addressing the unique transportation needs and priorities of Canada's Arctic and northern region, alleviating port congestion and optimizing supply chains through digitization.

Through the national trade corridors fund, more than $4 billion in federal funding has been invested in 213 projects. The projects span all provinces and territories across Canada. The projects are under way at ports, airports and highways. They range from infrastructure and construction projects to technical or feasibility studies and to projects that aim to bring partners together to use data and information to alleviate supply chain congestion.

I would like to thank the Auditor General and her team for this report. Transport Canada found that the audit and its findings were very informative and equally found working with the Office of the Auditor General to be very helpful. The OAG examined all seven calls, project decisions, contribution agreements and our processes and controls.

I was very pleased to see that the report found that Transport Canada did a good job of designing and implementing the program. While the audit had positive findings, it also shared two areas for improvement. Transport Canada agrees with the two recommendations included in the report.

The first recommendation, as you have heard from the OAG, is about improving Transport Canada's documentation processes. The audit found that the calls were designed using evidence and that the criteria were transparent and open. I'll quote the Auditor General, who in an earlier appearance before this committee, noted that the program was “a great example of well-informed decision-making”.

That being said, Transport Canada needs to do a better job of documenting elements of the decision-making process. The department has not always documented its methods for project prioritization.

Transport Canada has developed a plan to address this recommendation, and we will ensure that all processes and guidance for staff are updated. The approach will be used for the next call for proposals, and all guidance and process changes will be made this summer.

The second recommendation focuses more on how Transport Canada tracks the results of projects and then collects and analyzes them to understand the overall impact of the program.

We agree with the Auditor General that there is more to do and that now is the time to do it. Since the launch of the program, completed projects represent less than 10% of the total funding envelope of the program, so there is ample time for us to improve.

As noted in the report, we have completed some work to identify consistent project‑specific indicators such as the number of jobs created, or the length of road or rail constructed and what additional capacity is added to the transportation network.

For all agreements going forward and for ongoing projects, we will work with recipients to include these indicators so that we can better understand the impact of projects and the program overall. We will also introduce tools and guidance for staff to ensure that we collect and can easily report on and analyze the results of projects. We expect this work to be completed by September 2025.

To conclude, we thank the Auditor General and her team for the work on this report. It is extremely important and will help inform our work as we continue to deliver this program for Canadians.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.