Finance Committee on Dec. 7th, 2007

[Jim Hall]

I can actually go a little bit beyond that, if that's okay.

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

As long as you keep it tight. I have a couple more questions.

[Jim Hall]

Really quickly.

We commissioned a study to look at what a tax credit would be for antivirals, gowns, masks, gloves, and depending on the level of the tax credit, it would be anywhere between $17 million and $70 million. We'd be happy to table that report to the committee, if you'd like.

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

Yes, I would appreciate it. I think all members of the committee would appreciate getting that.

Mr. Baumann, I have a couple of questions for you as well, and first, a comment that it's great that you've come back and accepted this position, obviously, to help out the Canadian Olympic team. I'm sure you knew when you accepted it that the first thing you were going to have to do was come to the federal government and ask for money. So my congratulations. Maybe it is part of being truly Canadian, I'm not sure.

One of the things that came to mind that I wanted to ask you is about your experience—you touched on it a little bit—in Australia. Could you comment on whether the program that you've brought forward today is modelled under that system? You spoke a little bit about the successes, but your experience there obviously gives us a bit of an advantage in that regard.

Secondly, you talked about the private sector aspect and component, and we've seen the companies and corporations across this country stand up for our athletes—no question. One of the things we've tried to do at the federal and provincial levels is certainly to try to build teams together, whether it be with government or whether it be with the private sector, specifically in infrastructure, and we talk about including municipalities--and I don't know whether you're at this point yet, but an understanding of the commitment that the private sector is prepared to make, whether it's dollar for dollar or whatever it might be, to the commitment that our federal government would make of $150 million over the five years.

[Alex Baumann]

About the first question, in relation to the attributes of the Australian system, I don't think you can replicate systems; you can take particular aspects of systems. And what I take from Australia certainly is that there is a need to prioritize and target effectively. Post-1988, there was a concentration in Australia on a number of sports, eight sports initially, and targeting those sports that had the highest success at the Olympic Games and at the international level.

In the end, I don't believe we can be everything to everyone. So we do have to target and prioritize.

I think the other aspect is the whole issue of Canadian sport centres and moving to an institute-type model, where you're creating a high-performance centre or high-performance precincts where you have coaches, support service providers, and running programs. I think that will raise the bar as well.

So there are certain things that you need to take in order to have a leading-edge system, but I wouldn't replicate the Australian system. We need to have a Canadian model, and that's what we're trying to do now.

In relation to the second aspect, yes, it's true, if you take a look at the 2010 OTP program, where there's $11 million committed by the federal government and $11 million committed by the private sector, we are certainly looking at that. The Canadian Olympic Committee has set up a foundation to fundraise. So it is a partnership; we're not asking the federal government alone.

In the end, we need to have the resources if we want to be successful in the future. Right now, there exists an inequity between summer and winter sport, and we're trying to address that.

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

That's an interesting point, because the Own the Podium program, from a Winter Olympic perspective, certainly out-measured our totals, at least from a medal perspective. The commitment is there. It happened in Calgary as well.

I appreciate the presentation today and your being here.

Mr. Suleman, I did have a question for you as well.

One of the recommendations this committee made last year was the movement, at least, for discussions with the provincial and territorial governments towards a common securities regulator. I know you didn't necessarily include that in your presentation here, but you do have the words “tax executives” in your title. I wonder if you could comment very briefly—I know I don't have a whole lot of time left—on your and your organization's view as to whether you support both the committee's recommendation and the government's recommendation that we move towards one common securities regulator across the country.

[Munir Suleman]

The short answer is yes, we would support it.

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

You would, you do, okay.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Thank you very much. That does exhaust the time.

We now will move on to Ms. Thaï Thi Lac.

The floors is yours.

[Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

I will be sharing my time with Mr. St-Cyr.

I have one question only for Mr. Culbert. I would like you to tell me about the negative impact that a lack of funding would have on the marketing of your product.

[Rick Culbert]

The negative impact would be that this adoption would be very limited and hence the investment that's been made in this innovation would really be unrealized. There is a small segment of the industry that will adopt its use, but it is a fraction of the industry. Unfortunately when it comes to environmental contamination particularly, that is still going to naturally occur unless we can get widespread adoption.

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

I will continue along the same lines. I want to make sure that I fully understand your brief and your presentation.

Ultimately what you are saying is that producers do not want to pay for the administration of this vaccine because it is of no use to them. From what I understand, the animals are not getting sick from E. coli. It simply exists in their intestinal tract and it can eventually contaminate other areas, and it is human beings who get sick from it.

Have I understood that correctly?

[Rick Culbert]

That's absolutely correct. The farming community, they're great people. In many ways they're the backbone of our industry. They are ready to administer it.

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

I understood. I will use the rest of my time for Ms. Rech.

I would like to talk about a more general problem. I have often noticed, especially regarding the community groups in my riding, that programs are funded for a very short time. Funding can even last for only a few years. Groups apply to a program and they may be able to use it for one or two years. I have even seen people obtain grants for six-month programs. That is very inefficient. One often hears about government's efficiency, but I have seen community groups where one of the staff of four works full-time on funding applications.

Do you think this is a widespread problem? Do you not think a greater effort should be made to create programs with longer-term funding so that groups can devote themselves to their primary mission rather than to fundraising?

[Nathalie Rech]

This is in fact a significant problem and it doesn't only exist at the federal level. We are currently experiencing problems with the HPI because we have a very short time period to act. As I told you earlier, we have a 15-month maximum period. That is not enough time to bring about any real change and any long-term results.

Furthermore, there is extensive uncertainty with respect to funding for these organizations because these programs are hardly ever renewed, and this creates significant instability in terms of human resources. We put considerable focus on the connection between staff and homeless people. It is often the quality of that connection that determines whether an individual will get off the street or not. These relationships of trust, that already take an extremely long time to develop, are seriously compromised if there is a lot of staff turnover and this in turn compromises the effectiveness of our involvement.

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

Ms. Hébert, let's talk about the arts and culture in general. We often take an economic perspective because the cultural sector is an important sector of our economy. However, culture is more than economics, especially when you're talking about a nation, and Quebeckers are very sensitive to these issues. There is a broad consensus in Quebec that the Canada Arts Council's budget should be increased to $300 million.

Can you tell us how culture has been acknowledged for contributing to a nation, whether that be the Canadian nation or the Quebec nation? What does culture represent for a nation?

[Lorraine Hébert]

I like your question very much because...

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

I only ask simple questions.

[Lorraine Hébert]

Your question is both simple and not simple. Recent statistics show that 90% of Canadians think that an essential part of our national identity is the arts and their presence in our communities. As a Quebecker, when I read that, I thought that we had the same feelings about this. That is to say that contact with the arts, with expression, music, painting, cinema and performing artists in any one community, creates a feeling of belonging to that community and a feeling of pride, because the artists involved are a part of that community.

I should also point out that the success of our artists abroad has an enormous impact on a community's pride. Just as Mr. Baumann was asked to comment on the connection between support for athletes and Canadian identity, pride, and community cohesion, I would say that it is very important for the identity of a community to be able to identify with artists, athletes, stars, and strengths.

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

Thank you.

Mr. Barone, you referred to the cost that you incur in airports and elsewhere. In fact, I have always thought it was a bit strange that the total cost of air transport security is shouldered by the users, whereas it is not the case, for example, on roads. We don't pay for the police services on our roads; those costs are shared.

I see you are taking notes but that was just the preamble. I would like to talk about something else, as I did with Mr. Baumann, and that is bilingualism in our airports. The committee has just spent a week in Canadian airports. I assure you that it is not easy to obtain services in French, even in Ottawa, whether that be from federal government staff or transport company staff.

[Sam Barone]

Thank you for the question.

One of the things that are very important for us as national and international carriers is the ability to have multilingual staff. The market does dictate that, especially when we do have carriers based in Quebec, such as Air Transat and Air Canada, who have an interest in serving the market in the official languages.

We are making continuing efforts. This is a very serious issue for us in terms of serving the Canadian public, first and foremost, safely and securely—which goes to your point—but also in the language of their choice. We try to do that across the country, especially where there is a large presence of francophone passengers, especially in western Canada, for example, as well as in Ontario, of course, and the rest of the country. It is something we do in serving all our customer segments.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Thank you very much.

Now we'll move to Monsieur Harvey.

[Luc Harvey, Conservative, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Thank you.

There are seven of you and I only have a few minutes to put my questions. I would have liked to have an hour and a half to myself in order to ask you questions. I will therefore ask you to make your answers brief.

Ms. Hébert, is the Canada Council for the Arts also responsible for film? Does its $300 million budget include film?

[Lorraine Hébert]

There is a small part of it. There are media arts programs, for example, for author films and on using other platforms. You asked what is the difference between Telefilm Canada and the Canada Council for the Arts. Their programs are connected, however the individual grants for creation and research are allocated through the Canada Council. There are other groups, organizations, and media arts centres that are also supported by the Canada Council.

[Luc Harvey, Conservative, Louis-Hébert, QC]

When Telefilm Canada says that Quebec film is fine and that it needs more money, do you agree?