Finance Committee on Dec. 7th, 2007

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Thank you.

Mr. Baumann, again, there are a lot of subjects here. I've already asked the committees that presented in Halifax and in Calgary what I'm going to get for $30 million. I think they answered that question. And I see Mr. Pound in the room.

So the government's going to give you $30 million, but if Canadian athletes are going to be clean compared with some of the other athletes around the world, is the $30 million going to make a difference? Yesterday's athletes and today's athletes are not the same. The challenges are not the same.

Are they going to have a leg up? Is it going to help?

[Alex Baumann]

I think $30 million certainly is going to help. Is it enough? Probably not. But we have to start somewhere.

I do believe we have some challenges in terms of providing coaching and technical support--we're losing our best coaches--and providing quality services as well.

We've seen with Own the Podium, the 2010 program, that with a limited amount of resources, $22 million--$110 million over five years--you can make great strides if those resources are targeted and prioritized effectively. I think that's key.

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Baumann.

Ms. Hébert, you said in your opening remarks that funding could be useful for competition because even in the arts, there is international competition.

[Lorraine Hébert]

Absolutely.

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

If we were to increase the amount of funding for the arts, how would that help you?

[Lorraine Hébert]

Our artists are competing with world acclaimed artists.

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Francophone, anglophone or both?

[Lorraine Hébert]

Both.

I will refer to my sector because that is the one I know best but there are also great artists in Toronto, Quebec and Vancouver. Those are three sources of dance exports in Canada. Without the resources, competition based on excellence and high standards of quality becomes more and more difficult to sustain.

Second, there is a foreign market for large dance groups. If the best of our companies only have enough resources for three or five artists performing at a time, then there are very few important international opportunities available. So competitiveness is also important in that area.

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Thank you.

Ms. Rech, I believe we met in Sherbrooke. We are aware of the issues you are dealing with. We are working on a strong proposal to reduce homelessness and poverty. We recently became aware of a proposal from the Chamber of Commerce in Victoria, where the number of affordable housing units is the lowest in Canada. In fact, they work with organizations like yours.

Would it be possible to work with organizations such as the chambers of commerce?

[Nathalie Rech]

We are open to all kinds of partnerships. However, the business sector is not always particularly interested in homelessness and housing.

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

But those issues cost money for business people. It is in their interest for there to be less homelessness and more affordable housing.

[Nathalie Rech]

I think that it is in everyone's interest for there to be more affordable housing and less homelessness.

We feel that this is a societal plague. I work in the area of advocacy for rights. However, it is true that many business people are involved with organizations that work directly with the homeless. Therefore, in many regions there are in fact several partnerships between organizations directly providing services and private funders.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Thank you.

Monsieur St-Cyr, the floor is yours for seven minutes.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Thank you all for coming.

My first question will be for Mr. Baumann from the Canadian Olympic Committee, on how to assist our athletes. I think that most people would agree in saying that they need a little help.

I would like to ask you about something that is not in your brief but that I am concerned about, and that is bilingualism amongst Canadian athletes. We all know that some concerns exist regarding this issue. Several Quebec athletes, and even francophones outside Quebec, have experienced problems, and have stated that they were or felt they were at times victims of discrimination.

What measures are you taking to ensure that francophone athletes feel comfortable developing their careers in Canada?

[Alex Baumann]

Thanks very much for your question. Certainly it is an issue.

You've probably seen that I—having been in Australia—am not conversant in French, but I am trying to learn fairly quickly.

I do believe we're making great strides. I think one example is having Sylvie Bernier as the chef de mission for the 2008 games. I think it's an issue we are trying to address to ensure that the Canadian Olympic Committee has staff who are fully bilingual and that the capacity exists for coaches and administrators to deal with both languages effectively.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Allow me to come back to the issue of assistance for amateur sports and people involved in high performance sports. You mentioned the impact on the health of the population in general. Could you expand on that connection? It is not a very obvious one.

I might enjoy watching sports on TV, and watching our athletes run. I followed the last Olympics to an extent, and my main exercise consisted in going back and forth between the sofa and the fridge. Therefore, I wasn't necessarily keeping myself fit.

How can we ensure that high performance sports and their funding will result in more real physical activity, especially amongst our young people?

[Alex Baumann]

Yes, it's a very good question.

I guess from my experiences in Australia, where they see funding in high performance as an investment rather than an expense and where there are aspirations that are created and role models created, I do believe those role models help create aspirations for young people to get involved in physical activity. I mention in the paper a number of examples where kids do get involved in participating in physical activity, in clubs, etc. When I was CEO of Queensland Swimming, post the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, the registrations for swimming bumped up 15% because of the success of that team.

There need to be programs, no doubt, to link grassroots participation and high performance to try to get kids more active. Key role models and athletes can sell them the message of the benefits of physical activity, not necessarily reaching to the highest level.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

I think it will be interesting then for you to bring us some concrete examples of what we could develop as a policy when you come back before this committee, so that we can understand how to develop a vertical sport strategy, one that connects the very highest level to the ground level.

I'll now address my comments to Ms. Rech on homelessness and social housing.

The Bloc québécois tabled a bill on the use of the surplus of the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, the CMHC, a housing organization. Under the bill, the CMHC would have kept $1 billion of its surplus as a reserve because it has a mortgage insurance role to play, and it would transfer the rest of its surplus to the provinces to be allocated to social housing. Unfortunately the House of Commons voted against this initiative; the Liberals and the Conservatives voted against the bill.

If a similar bill were to be tabled by any party during the next session, would you feel that parliamentarians should vote for or against that bill?

[Nathalie Rech]

Thank you very much for the question.

It is an interesting idea. The CMHC surplus is added to the current budget surplus, and a considerable amount of money is stored that way. The CMHC's mission should be to provide housing to all Canadian men and women. We felt this was a very interesting proposition and we were very disappointed that the House of Commons rejected it.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

In terms of programs dealing with homelessness, there was the Supporting Communities Partnership Initiative, the SCPI, and now there is a new program entitled the Homelessness Partnership Initiative, the HPI. There are different criteria under the new HPI program. The focus is on infrastructure, concrete, things that are permanent, rather than on human resources, assistance programs and so on.

Are you confronted with those types of problems? Is assistance for homelessness nothing but concrete? You also require human resources and assistance programs?

[Nathalie Rech]

The criteria and orientations of the new program are different to a certain extent. Practically speaking, in several areas there will be mainly human resources and no investment in concrete. That's the first part to my answer.

I think that the new government program is more focused on long term results. That is why there is a focus on housing and long term solutions, which is not incidental, in fact, because if we want to get people out of emergency situations, we need to get them off the street and find long-term solutions for them.

On the other hand, this has to be done within a maximum of 15 months because the new projects will be starting at the earliest on January 1, 2008.

It is impossible for us to achieve long-term results with short-term funding.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Thank you very much. I appreciate that.

We'll now move on to Mr. Dykstra. You have seven minutes, please.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

We have about seven minutes, so I'm going to try to speak to three of the groups I have questions for.

Mr. Hall, you took an interesting approach. One of the things we have continually heard over the last number of years is that the federal government needs to come up with a strategy that will deal with a pandemic. You hear a lot of stories and questions and comments--the federal government needs to have this stockpile of medicine--and quite frankly, it's interesting that you've come back with a moderate proposal that actually speaks to small and medium-sized businesses assisting in the process and doing so through a tax credit model.

One of the questions I have is, as a corporation, how have you actually prepared for your employees in case we do end up with a pandemic?

[Jim Hall]

Thank you. That's a great question.

We have a very robust pandemic plan at Hoffmann-La Roche. The objectives really are to protect the health and safety of our workers, to ensure business continuity, and then to ensure a recovery of business. The plan does include both treatment and preventative strategies. Our feeling is that treatment is important, but prevention is key to ensuring that there's no absenteeism or that it minimizes absenteeism and we can continue to operate.

Obviously, when we talk to other corporations, they're very interested in what our plan is, and we share that with them. As I said in my brief, one of their biggest challenges is understanding what kind of support they are going to receive from government; will they have access to the current stockpile of antivirals that exist or not? At this point in time, we're not able to really respond to that, and that's really the nature of our second recommendation.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

In the federal government's 2006 budget, we set aside over $1 billion over five years to deal with this. That is, I guess, the broader federal perspective on it. Do you have in mind an amount that you think the tax credit should be worth or how it should be...?

Maybe I'll just leave it at that, how much you think it should be.