Evidence of meeting #43 for Finance in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was federal.
9:15 a.m.
Senior Leader, Sport Matters Group
This is exactly why the Canadian Sport for Life model needs to be implemented, and hence the need for the investment.
9:15 a.m.
Liberal
9:15 a.m.
Conservative
9:15 a.m.
Bloc
Jean-Yves Laforest Bloc Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Bird, you are suggesting that amateur sport be considered a charitable activity. I would like to hear what you consider amateur sport. Are we talking all amateur sport or just competitive amateur sport?
I think that if an amateur sport is administered by an organization, that sport can be played by anyone, for example, a five-year-old boy learning to skate. Is your definition as broad as mine?
9:15 a.m.
Senior Leader, Sport Matters Group
The short answer is yes. There are some 34,000 community-based amateur sport organizations offering the full range of recreational programs for children and youth. They are currently not-for-profit organizations and are not covered by the charitable provisions of the Income Tax Act.
9:15 a.m.
Bloc
Jean-Yves Laforest Bloc Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC
Your suggestion is interesting. But we have talked a lot about poverty among youth and young families, so I wonder if such a measure might favour a certain elite group rather than allow more disadvantaged children to play sports. It makes me wonder.
9:15 a.m.
Senior Leader, Sport Matters Group
It's quite the opposite. Three or four years ago the Blair government modernized their charitable act and included environmental organizations, amateur sport organizations, and arts organizations. Arts are already included here in Canada. Their purpose in doing that was to create exactly the opportunities you describe so that community-minded individuals could donate to local not-for-profit sport clubs and associations and support the full inclusion of young people in their sport programs.
So the driving force is to increase the inclusion and accessibility of sport in our communities, not just because sport is a good thing--I think it provides certain outlets for young people--but because it helps to generate the related social and economic benefits that people fully appreciate in their communities.
9:15 a.m.
Bloc
Jean-Yves Laforest Bloc Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC
Thank you. I would like to give some time to my colleague, Mr. Julian.
9:15 a.m.
NDP
Peter Julian NDP Burnaby—New Westminster, BC
You are very kind, Mr. Laforest.
I have two quick questions to follow up with Ms. Sinclair.
You're very eloquent on the child care issue. We have about $120 billion in corporate tax cuts that have been basically shovelled off the back of a truck. How much do you estimate it would cost to put in place fully funded child care across the country? Do you believe that should be a priority rather than the corporate tax cuts?
9:15 a.m.
Regional Executive Vice-President, British Columbia, Public Service Alliance of Canada
I don't generally agree with tax cuts. I don't think they help build our society. I think you could have a good system with perhaps $4 billion to $6 billion over the next four to five years--I don't know; maybe it would be less than that.
Let me defer to Adrienne on that.
9:20 a.m.
Provincial Co-ordinator, First Call: B.C. Child and Youth Advocacy Coalition
I'm not a really good numbers person, but I think about a $3 billion investment annually is what we're looking for to build a universal child care system.
9:20 a.m.
NDP
Peter Julian NDP Burnaby—New Westminster, BC
So that's $3 billion plus $5 billion for the Canadian child tax credit benefit. You're essentially talking about $8 billion to lift a lot of families out of poverty and put a lot of kids in much better quality-of-life situations, as opposed to $120 billion in corporate tax cuts over a number of years.
9:20 a.m.
Provincial Co-ordinator, First Call: B.C. Child and Youth Advocacy Coalition
And it will pay off in the long term; eventually a bunch of other costs will fall off the table.
9:20 a.m.
NDP
Peter Julian NDP Burnaby—New Westminster, BC
It also creates jobs, as Mr. Laforest just pointed out.
My last question is a quick question for Mr. Bird. I have a lot of lower-income families in my particular riding. What would be the cost of making the children's fitness tax credit fully refundable? What would be the cost of doing that and making it accessible to low-income families?
9:20 a.m.
Senior Leader, Sport Matters Group
We don't yet have access to the numbers related to the current implementation of the tax credit, but there has been some analysis and it's a very modest cost. It would cost less than $15 million to include that group in the program.
9:20 a.m.
Conservative
September 28th, 2009 / 9:20 a.m.
Conservative
Daryl Kramp Conservative Prince Edward—Hastings, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and welcome to all. I'm certainly glad you are here and giving us this opportunity. I'll maybe just try to slip around as quickly as I can to cover a number of topics.
Mr. Bird, I'd like you to know that I do appreciate your thoughts on allowing willing individuals to donate through more effective use of our tax system. I still believe in some of those old analogies of keeping your kids in sports and out of the courts. It's just an opportunity to recognize that in a lot of cases, dollars spent on social applications in some particular place is money well invested, and it's certainly a heck of a lot less costly than dealing with the results afterwards.
Many years ago I was a police officer dealing with the narcotics trade, so I well recognize just how important prevention is. So thank you very, very kindly for those thoughts.
Slipping over to the dredging issue, could I have a bit more clarity from Mr. Scurr or others who would like to participate? To what depth is it necessary to take the side channel to be acceptable at low tide?
9:20 a.m.
Spokesperson, Ladner Sediment Group
The 1998 levels, sir, were 20 feet at low tide. In most areas today it's two to three feet.
Does that answer your question?
9:20 a.m.
Conservative
Daryl Kramp Conservative Prince Edward—Hastings, ON
It does.
Once again, if continuous funding were not available, but a one-time shot, how long would this last?
9:20 a.m.
Spokesperson, Ladner Sediment Group
At the rate the silt is coming into our channels, and because this is a managed river and has diverted flow, to keep the main channels scoured, I would say it would probably be five years maximum before we're back to almost the same situation.
9:20 a.m.
Conservative
Daryl Kramp Conservative Prince Edward—Hastings, ON
The reason I asked, of course, is that I think we all recognize that we are taking on significant debt right now to stimulate our economy and to try to get that sense of balance, but it's a fool's game to believe this can go on. We all recognize there will have to be a serious reduction so that we don't end up with long-term structural deficits.
That's why I want to try to ensure that we don't commit funding that is not going to give a long-term result without some long-term commitment to it. We just have to find a balance, because we're handling your dollars; that's the point.
9:20 a.m.
Spokesperson, Ladner Sediment Group
Absolutely. You're quite right, and what we are proposing, sir, is a maintenance program after the initial dredge is done to maintain the....
May I just quickly say there's a study being deployed by Hay & Company. It's a hydrological study to model the channels, which are now managed by the federal government, to see which situations would produce less siltation in the channels in the future.
We are looking at that initially, and once the science is done we'll have results that give us indications as to the required direction of future dredge operations. However, we are recommending that about $500,000 per year be devoted to the secondary channels after the initial dredge.
9:25 a.m.
Conservative
Daryl Kramp Conservative Prince Edward—Hastings, ON
Okay, thank you. We're moving on to some others.
Let me just thank all of the presenters on the dredging issue for having done your homework and giving us specific numbers to factor into our deliberations with specific goals and results. We do appreciate the homework done on that.
Mr. Kemp, I'm a little confused with regard to the dollars available and the various means of saving costs for particular developers, be they small or large. I'd maybe just like more clarity. How could you ensure this would translate back into tenant savings and not just end up in the pockets of a few developers and/or people who simply wish to be able to pocket those dollars at the expense of all the people who do need the little income? Do you have any thoughts as to how you would try to ensure there would be a medium of fair delivery there?
