1 Introduction
From the most current information available, the state of transportation
in Canada is presented in the 2002 Annual Report.
The Canada Transportation Act (1996) has placed a statutory
responsibility on the Minister of Transport to table every year
an annual report on the state of transportation in Canada. The
mandate delimiting the responsibility is defined in Section 52
of the Act:
"Each year the Minister of Transport shall, before the
end of May, lay before Parliament a report briefly reviewing the
state of transportation in Canada in respect of the preceding
year, including:
- the financial viability of each mode of transportation and
its contribution to the Canadian economy and the development
of the regions;
- the extent to which carriers and modes of transportation
were provided resources, facilities and services at public expenses;
- the extent to which carriers and modes of transportation
received compensation, indirectly or directly, for the resources,
facilities and services that were required to be provided as
an imposed public duty; and
- any other transportation matters the Minister considers appropriate."
This 2002 annual report is the seventh submitted by the Minister
since the coming into force of the Canada Transportation Act.
This report presents an overview of transportation in Canada,
limited only by the availability of relevant data but nevertheless
using the most current data and information available. When 2002
data was available, the review for that year is reported; otherwise,
this report reflects the most recent year for which data was available.
The scope is not limited to federal transportation responsibilities,
providing by the same token a unique comprehensiveness despite
its limited coverage of urban and intermodal transportation matters.
In recent years, an addendum to the report was posted on Transport
Canada's Web site to provide more detailed information on subject
matters covered in the overview of transportation in Canada. Last
year, for instance, an addendum covering government spending on
transportation and transportation employment was accessible on
the Internet. This year, a serious attempt was made to produce
a more succinct review of the state of transportation in Canada.
Maintaining the same coverage as in previous years' reports was
achieved by making a more extensive use of an addendum. Readers
interested in more detailed and/or time series information should
consult the Addendum at www.tc.gc.ca.
Individual references to the Addendum are found either in the
text per se or in footnotes to the text or to tables and figures.
Information contained in tables or used to produce figures in
last year's report are either updated in the report per se or
found in tables in the Addendum. In addition, all previous years'
annual reports are easily accessible on Transport Canada's Web
site at www.tc.gc.ca.
Transportation is omnipresent in Canadians' lives. Transportation
opens markets to natural resources, agricultural products and
manufactured goods, it supports service industries, and it alleviates
the challenges delimited by topography. Transportation also links
communities and reduces the effects of distances separating people
from each other. As simple as these implied and oversimplified
roles of transportation are, the intertwined and interdependent
relationships between transportation and the economic and social
fabrics of our society are complex — this is because these roles
are diverse and comprise many separate evolving circumstances
and conditions delimiting needs.
The fluctuations in economic activities occurring either at
the regional or at the sectoral level have a definite impact on
the state of transportation. This is because the demand for transportation
services is derived from the needs emanating from all sectors
of the economy. This in turn explains why this year's report again
begins by reviewing at a macro level the performance of the Canadian
economy (Chapter 2). The information behind the employment, trade
and tourism chapters in last year's report has been placed in
the Addendum. Detailed information on transportation energy consumption
is also accessible in the Addendum.
Chapter 3 presents the most recent information on government
transportation spending and revenues. This chapter addresses the
Section 52 (b) requirement related to the statutory mandate for
the annual report. Some of the government transportation spending
is directed at specific transportation system infrastructure assets.
Although the private sector also makes expenditures on and investments
in Canada's transportation system, these are not covered in this
chapter. The reader must keep in mind that the public sector does
not plan nor fully control all such expenditures and investments.
Chapter 4 reviews safety and security in the transportation
system. Safe transportation operations remain a fundamental priority
of the Canadian transportation system. This chapter reviews the
most recent accidents and incidents statistics by mode to provide
an up-to-date overview. The events of September 11, 2001, have
led to more emphasis being placed on enhancing the security of
the transportation system, and this chapter presents an overview
of initiatives launched to achieve this goal.
Chapter 5, a review of transportation and the environment,
devotes special attention to climate change. With Canada's commitment
to the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention
on Climate Change, an overview of the initial elements of Canada's
proposed response to climate change is presented. This chapter
also reviews the other environmental challenges associated with
transportation activities.
Chapters 6 to 9 give the most recent information on transportation,
but this information is structured differently than it was in
recent years' reports. The fundamental difference is a modal presentation
of the information. For rail (Chapter 6), marine (Chapter 8) and
air transportation (Chapter 9), the coverage is structured as
special events in 2002, infrastructure, industry structure,
freight and passenger transportation activity levels, and, where
applicable, intermodalism and performance. All road-related transportation
has been regrouped in Chapter 7, with coverage of the same subject
matters as found in the three modal chapters.
Most of the data used and presented in this report or in the
Addendum came from sources external to Transport Canada. The onus
for data validation rests with the external sources. Proper care
and attention to data quality and limitations was devoted during
the production of this report, and footnotes are used where needed
to flag issues. Within the constraints of the statutory deadlines
under which the report was produced, serious attempts to address
data-related issues were made. When data accuracy was confirmed
by the source(s) used, the challenge to data quality was stopped.
This report does not attempt to circumvent data limitations by
estimating, nor does it attempt to present a prospective view
of Canada's transportation system.
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