Questions and responses 42nd Parliament, 1st session December 3, 2015, to September 11, 2019

With regard to the approval to build a new airport on City of Terrebonne and City of Mascouche land announced by the Department of Transport on November 4, 2016: (a) what are the details of the analysis grid used to approve the project, including (i) the complete list of all items to be considered, (ii) the relative weight of each item to be considered, (iii) the indicators to measure the items in (i); (b) what data was compiled by the Department to evaluate the following factors related to building an airport concerning (i) safety issues and hazards associated with its operations, (ii) social and political acceptability, (iii) the environmental impacts on fauna, flora, and humans, including data shared with the Department of the Environment, (iv) economic spin-offs and consequences; (c) what data was taken into account by the Ministry to evaluate the following factors related to building a new airport on City of Terrebonne and City of Mascouche land concerning (i) safety issues and hazards associated with its operations, including those resulting from a nearby landfill, (ii) social and political acceptability, (iii) the environmental impacts on fauna, flora, and humans, including data shared with the Department of the Environment, (iv) economic spin-offs and consequences; (d) does the Department anticipate economic spin-offs from the future airport’s operations; (e) if the answer to (d) is affirmative, to what types, what contexts, and what amounts, broken down by year, do its economic spin-off evaluations correspond; (f) if the answer to (d) is affirmative, does the Department evaluate the possibility of public funds being requested or committed to (i) develop and build the airport, (ii) any type of associated future project, (iii) its ongoing operations and, where applicable, what are the amounts, broken down by source, including programs, ministries, special funds, discretionary funds, etc., of each of its evaluations; (g) did the Department incur costs related to (i) analyzing the file, (ii) taking measures, (iii) collecting existing or non-existing data and, where applicable, what is the value of these costs and the type of each expenditure; (h) when an airport development project receives approval from the Department and there are environmental impacts, does the Department anticipate compensation to offset the project’s ecological losses; (i) what improvements does the Minister of Transport anticipate making to the evaluation process and what is the anticipated timeline for these changes; (j) what is the anticipated timeline for changes to require public consultations announced for early 2017 to be held; and (k) does the Minister of Transport intend to propose changes to the evaluation process so that the consultations to be held are not overseen by the project’s proponent?

With regard to the 60 acres of Central Experimental Farm land that was assigned to the National Capital Commission in November 2014: (a) within the last 10 years, (i) what specifically has this portion of the farm been used for, (ii) what species of plants have been grown there, (iii) what experiments have been conducted there, (iv) what significant or successful research has come specifically as a result of this 60 acres of land; (b) has the Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food conducted any studies in order to ascertain what the impact of this loss of land will be, in general, and on experimental research capabilities; (c) what has the Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food done to date to mitigate the impact of losing this land; and (d) what does the Department plan to do in the future to mitigate the impact of losing this land?

With regard to land owned by the Department of National Defence on the slopes of Mont-Saint-Bruno: (a) what are the department’s plans for this 441-hectare wooded area adjacent to the national park; (b) will it respond favourably to the request by the executive committee of the Communauté métropolitiane de Montréal, Mouvement Ceinture Verte, Fondation du Mont-Saint-Bruno and the Municipality of Saint-Bruno-de-Mantarville to incorporate the area in its entirety into Mont-Saint-Bruno provincial park; and (c) when will the Department of National Defence make a decision on the sale, transfer or retention of the area?

With regard to the government’s response to petition No. 388, addressed to the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development and published on the Office of the Auditor General's website, specifically in response to question three, wherein the government states it would preferably use the Central Experimental Farm for two future-planned studies: (a) what is the objective of each study; (b) based on research conducted by the government, is it possible to determine if each study be concluded by the end of 2022; (c) which characteristics of this specific plot of the Central Experimental Farm are required for these studies, broken down by type; (d) has the government considered whether these studies can be completed on another plot of the Central Experimental Farm, and if so, what was its conclusion; (e) what similar lands or facilities exist that could accommodate these studies; (f) to-date what costs have been incurred in preparing these studies; and (g) has the cost of cancelling these studies been considered, and if so, what would they be?