Finance Committee on Oct. 16th, 2006

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

I'll ask this question of Ms. Lemay.

I think there was a time when it was understood that government was responsible primarily for things like roads, bridges, policing, and perhaps military at one time was a fairly significant expenditure of government. How did we get to this enormous infrastructure deficit? How did we get here?

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

You have three seconds to attack that one.

[Marie Lemay]

The expansion of our country was after World War II, so we are a young country, but we've grown. We're at a point where infrastructure is at the end of its serviceable lifespan.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

And the spending priority of government....

[Marie Lemay]

It's been an approach where we have to change the culture now. We just don't build, we build and we maintain. It's part of the same cost.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

Thank you very much.

It's part of the educational process. We were alluding to the Suzuki Foundation a minute ago as well.

We'll continue with Madam Wasylycia-Leis, for seven minutes.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

It may be an educational process, but it's also a political issue. We have dealt with a decade of first Liberal and now Conservative governments that have chosen to put the money that's available by way of surplus, all of it, against the debt or to corporate tax cuts. It is a matter of priorities. We continue to ignore a $59 billion infrastructure deficit in this country, and we're paying the price now.

That's not my question, sorry.

I'll get to it. This is my time, Mr. Turner, just hold your horses.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

Excuse me, direct your remarks to the witnesses, if you would.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

All right. I want to start with Dina Epale.

The Conservatives are going to have a little when I mention this, but I don't think you should hold too much hope from this supposed $320 million boost to foreign aid as a sign of this government meeting our millennium development targets, because in fact, as you know, the $320 million—which should have been $500 million—was what the NDP managed to negotiate out of the Liberals during the last minority Liberal government, which these Conservatives did agree to implement, although they did fall short of the target. So I think we're still back at square one, which is how we failed with the Liberals, and now we don't have a signal from the Conservatives.

How do we get them to actually understand the importance of our international obligations and to start putting in place a formula that will meet our targets?

[Dina Epale]

Thank you very much.

I think that's a very important question, because one of the things that was mentioned in our recommendations is that we have often heard Canada talking about meeting its 0.7% GNI to ODA target by 2015. As you are well aware, last year in the House of Commons it was agreed, or the House supported a motion, to figure out how Canada is going to achieve that benchmark point in 2010. So that is something. We're not talking of 2015, because we have to make sure we achieve something by 2010 if we are going to talk about 2015.

So one of our recommendations right here is for very concrete steps to be taken to ensure what we can do to achieve what was discussed, either at the national level or in the Commons, or what needs to be done to achieve this often talked about 0.7% GNI to ODA target.

It's very striking to me when you hear of Canada's economic situation, that the country is a very healthy one among the other G-7 countries but that we are lagging behind. Just today, Sweden, which happens to have a conservative government, has pledged 1% of GNI to international development. Well, that is our recommendation here, that concrete steps be taken to either meet the 0.5% target that was discussed in the House of Commons or meet the OECD's average country commitment of 0.42% of GNI.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

Thank you for that. I think that's a useful recommendation. I hope the Conservatives take it seriously, because that would get us a little closer to a more respectable contribution, from one of the wealthiest nations in the world. Anyway, I won't go on at length about that any more.

I would like to talk about the Suzuki Foundation's idea for a new model, or a new way of looking at competitiveness. I think that's a very useful contribution today, because this is the theme of our committee. You've pointed out that competitiveness doesn't just occur when you look after the business sector or give taxes on that front, but when you look at a range of quality of life and environmental issues.

Can you elaborate a bit more on that? You said we're 16th on that index. What countries are ahead of us, and what have they done that we could emulate?

[Pierre Sadik]

The World Economic Forum ranking--I want to be very even-handed about this--much to my chagrin, didn't take environmental sustainability into account as one of the indices in ranking the countries on their competitiveness. Of course, in the OECD ranking we did late last year, we took environmental performance into account. But the fact that eight countries finished well ahead of Canada in both the competitive ranking and the environmental ranking shows at a minimum that the two are not mutually exclusive. You can do well by the bottom line, by the pocketbook, and you can do well by your citizens and the natural geography of your country.

It may well be, as we assert at the Suzuki Foundation, that there's a positive relationship between environmental responsibility and economic competitiveness. That's born of the fact that you use your resources more efficiently if you're operating in an environmentally sustainable manner. Efficiency always helps businesses thrive, if not in the very short term, certainly in the medium and long terms. So that's probably one of the biggest payoffs if you look beyond the very short term.

You also tend to attract good workers from within your country and around the world. There are these rankings of best places to work and live. You attract that kind of thing, and you maintain a healthy, fit, high quality of life workforce and citizenry. Those are probably some of the first things that come to mind right now on the co-benefits there.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

Thank you very much.

We'll move to Mr. Savage.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Thank you, Chair. Thank you to all the witnesses.

To Mr. Szmurlo from Enbridge, I want to talk a little bit about wind power. I think we all recognize that it is an important initiative and we need more of it, although there might still be some confusion every now and then. The Minister of Energy in Nova Scotia last week was reticent about wind power. He was quoted as saying, “What happens if the wind stops blowing?”, which is an amazing statement from a minister of energy.

You mentioned the WPPI. Can you explain to me what it does for a company like Enbridge?

[Chuck Szmurlo]

The wind power production incentive, or WPPI, is a cash payment of $10 per megawatt hour for every megawatt hour of wind power produced by a qualifying project. It has stimulated the growth of the industry here in Canada to the point that it's the fastest-growing source of electricity in the country now. It has grown rapidly, even in the last five years that I've been involved, from negligible participation to pushing 1,000 megawatts today.

I think the industry has benefited from that, and a continuation of it would ensure that the wind power industry will grow from the very small percentage of contribution it makes today to something more toward the 10% or so of generation capacity of which it's capable.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Is 10% a sort of end target on wind power in Canada?

[Chuck Szmurlo]

It would be a realistic goal over the next twenty years.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Do you have any sense of what the cost would be to reinstate that? It would depend on the take-up, I suppose.

[Chuck Szmurlo]

It would depend on the magnitude of the program, but I don't have an exact dollar figure.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Okay.

Enbridge is in my part of the world now, in New Brunswick. In both Nova Scotia and New Brunswick we have built natural gas distribution systems in the last five to seven years. I don't think the take-up has been as much as people had originally anticipated.

Especially in a place like Atlantic Canada, where fuel oil and thermally generated electricity are heating homes and businesses, is there any initiative the federal government should take to help the greenfield market with natural gas?

[Chuck Szmurlo]

Do you mean for the stimulation of natural gas?

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Yes.

[Chuck Szmurlo]

I would only advocate the consistency of policies. I'm not an expert on natural gas marketing. I'm more involved in the renewable side of things. But I would advocate a constancy and a consistency of policy, and the marketplace would ultimately decide on what would be the best fuel.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Sadik, on the recommendations that you've made for switch green and drive green, so I understand, on the drive green, we're talking about company cars and the taxable benefit of a company car. If people have cars with emissions that are too high, they would be taxed more. If the emissions are less, they'd be taxed less. Is it a model you're familiar with that works somewhere else?

[Pierre Sadik]

Yes, it was introduced in the U.K. in 2002. It's been meeting its targets of both reducing greenhouse gas emissions and reducing fuel costs for employees and employers.