Evidence of meeting #22 for Finance in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was investment.
10:50 a.m.
Managing Partner, Tax, Deloitte & Touche
Population is a key driver of productivity, and we do see a need to do that, so I would support additional resources on that front.
Much of what we're talking about, though, in fact provides an attraction to Canada without much additional spending. That's clearly the first priority upon which we would focus.
10:50 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Rajotte
Sorry, there may have been a mix-up in the time. I apologize for being late.
10:50 a.m.
Liberal
Scott Brison Liberal Kings—Hants, NS
Okay.
Ms. Price, what have been the economic spin-offs and benefits of pride festivals across Canada? Are these festivals important as economic drivers in communities? Should the government be investing, or reversing the decision to cancel funding for pride festivals?
10:50 a.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Luminato, Toronto Festivals of Arts and Creativity, Festivals and Major Events
You probably know that in 2014 Toronto will be hosting World Pride. This is comparable with the Toronto pride festival. Numbers have been generated and they have done their own report, which is consistent with the economic impact we see here.
We continue to refer to this proposed new program as an investment. We have made a minimum five-to-one guarantee of return in tax revenue, and this tax revenue happens within the same fiscal year, which is a unique benefit of these kinds of festivals and events. We are proposing criteria that we would work out with Industry Canada. We would hope they would consider festivals of all kinds. Our coalition includes arts festivals, pride festivals, fairs, the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair, etc. They are definitely economic drivers, big employers, and we would expect them to be considered as applicants for this new program.
10:55 a.m.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and my thanks to the witnesses for attending today.
I would like to take up the line of questioning of Mr. Brison, in particular in relation to festivals and the recommendations made by your group. I live in Fort McMurray and I've lived there for a long time. There were 1,500 people living there when I arrived in 1967. Today there are about 140,000, including the people in the oil sands camps. We're seeing tremendous change, but the one thing I haven't seen a change in is the number of festivals that my constituency has, particularly in Fort McMurray.
We had a rodeo for a long time. We had a winter carnival, one of the longest-running winter carnivals in the world. We had the second-longest dog-sled race in the world at one time. All of them have fallen by the wayside because of funding. I saw our government spend a considerable amount of money on large festivals, but I'm wondering about the smaller festivals and the ones that operate totally with volunteers. How do we go about supporting them? What do you think of the support we've given as a government in the past? Some of my festivals got some funding for the first time in many years over the last year, and I was pleased to be able to advise them of that. They told me that they couldn't continue the festivals without funding.
10:55 a.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Luminato, Toronto Festivals of Arts and Creativity, Festivals and Major Events
Our research tells us that you have over 5,000 jobs generated in the tourism sector in your riding. There isn't a riding in this country that does not have some component. Our friends from B.C. have quite a few jobs in that sector, but it's important across the country. It's not just important for job creation and the kind of economic impact I've been talking about. It's important for our quality of life.
10:55 a.m.
Conservative
10:55 a.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Luminato, Toronto Festivals of Arts and Creativity, Festivals and Major Events
As to the smaller festivals, we considered them in the course of the short-term MTEP program, and we learned that it was a challenge to have a proper balance in funding between the smaller community festivals, which are important in their communities, and the large festivals. That's why our proposal suggests that there be an allocation of $20 million of the $50 million we're proposing just for festivals that did not meet the past criteria.
10:55 a.m.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
That was the point I was trying to make. Thank you.
My riding generates somewhere around 200,000 jobs in direct employment in the oil industry. Tourism is important, but we can't find enough workers. We have a lot of jobs up there. That was my next set of questions, in relation to productivity.
How do we work with mobility of workforce? We've had it for years. People from Newfoundland went down to New York and Toronto and built skyscrapers; many aboriginals from Ontario did the same thing. How do we get people from one part of the country to another to make our productivity rate better than the one in the U.S.? We have the ability to do so. We're bringing in foreign workers on a temporary basis. How do we get people from one part of the country to another and incent them to do that? Do you have any ideas on that?
10:55 a.m.
Managing Partner, Tax, Deloitte & Touche
There's lots of research that suggests that Canada is simply a less mobile economy than the United States. That has an affect on productivity. It increases the structural unemployment rate. In other words, the longer somebody would remain unemployed, the less willing he would be to make a move.
We believe ultimately the key is to look for resources not just in Canada but globally as well. Canada is an open economy and can attract multinationals from a business perspective.
10:55 a.m.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
Absolutely.
I agree with you, we have tons of engineers in Fort McMurray. We have tons of people from all over the world there, I think somewhere around 60,000 or 80,000 people who work indirectly there or in Calgary.
For mobility of the workforce in particular, and I'm talking about people in Ontario and Quebec, how do we get them and encourage them to come out to Fort McMurray to take up these great jobs, instead of giving them to somebody else? That's really what I'm interested in. I'd like to hear any ideas you have as far as incentives for unemployment insurance and other programs that we currently have in place are concerned.
10:55 a.m.
Managing Partner, Tax, Deloitte & Touche
We believe an important element of productivity in general is actually education, and simply helping people be aware of those kinds of opportunities, of the benefits and costs of remaining, or what jobs may be available. Education is actually a very pervasive element of how there can be improvement on productivity. It's about methodology, it's about creating a culture for productivity, but in many cases, in the example you're talking about, it can break down the barriers for somebody who is uncertain about whether to move...about what the advantages or disadvantages may be. And there are elements of simply providing that information to people that can be positive.
11 a.m.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
What do you think about the unemployment insurance program, and manipulating it to some degree, to offer incentives for people to move?
11 a.m.
Conservative
11 a.m.
NDP
Wayne Marston NDP Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Ms. Pearl-Weinberg, I appreciate your comments. You were talking about the PRPP. New Democrats are quite concerned about the PRPP in the sense that it's open to the same market risks pretty much as RRSPs are. I will give some credit to the government; it is a step in an important change. But we believe there's still a gap that's got to be addressed for the rest of Canadians. They must get tired of hearing this from me, but over 60% of working Canadians today don't have any pension plan. I'm not talking about the small-business person in particular; I'm talking more about the person who's got just a regular job.
We've made the proposal here that another leg that could be changed, so to speak, is the CPP leg. Investing in the core assets of CPP over a 30-year period of phased-in investment would allow us to protect workers down the road who won't have anything else if we don't do this.
I'd like your response to that, if you would, please.
11 a.m.
General Tax Counsel, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, Investment Funds Institute of Canada
I'm sorry, I'm not understanding exactly the question. Commenting on...?
11 a.m.
NDP
Wayne Marston NDP Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON
On the development or the enhancement of the Canada Pension Plan by allowing people to invest in it. Right now there's a failure of people to invest in their own futures and there is a certain responsibility for people to put their money into something. So CPP, being mandatory, would allow for a push to these folks who aren't investing. Yes, it would increase the taxes on the employers to some degree to help co-fund this. But if we don't do this, in 30 years' time we're going to hit a very serious wall of people with nothing.
Just your comments, if you would, please.
11 a.m.
General Tax Counsel, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, Investment Funds Institute of Canada
I'm hesitant to be positive about something that is mandatory on employers over and above what they're already contributing to CPP, especially the small business. Now, we're obviously hoping with PRPPs to have contributions both from the employee and the employer side, but making them mandatory—
11 a.m.
NDP
Wayne Marston NDP Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON
I understand your point, but the reality has been that people are not investing, and if we don't have a mandatory type of investment, they're not apt to. But I appreciate your point.
Mr. Mills, I just want to say to you that I certainly support your brief's call for a very modest investment on the part of the government to start a science-based study of what's happening in the weather change in our country. It's very clear that each year the things that are happening to us seem to be more dramatic, more dynamic. I just wanted to let you know I support that. I'm not really asking you a question. It's a conversation we haven't had enough of, and that's why I highlight it.
Mr. Dunn, you talk about the portability of Canada's workforces. One of the things I've spoken here repeatedly about, again, is the red seal training program for labour, for electricians and such, where you get a competency level that's guaranteed across the country, so it allows the workers, if they so choose, to move to new jobs. That's going to require some investment on the part of the government.
Many provinces, and Ontario is the one I'll speak about, have withdrawn somewhat from apprenticeship programs. I was a school board trustee, and we had a dropout rate of 28%. You've got in that area the potential workforce, combined with our aboriginal communities, to fill a lot of your gap. It won't be the highly skilled technical type, but would you support a move on the federal government's part to invest there?
11 a.m.
Managing Partner, Tax, Deloitte & Touche
Again, one of our eight steps to increase productivity is greater education. A key part of our finding on that front was our consideration of risk aversion among Canadian decision-makers. We looked at comparing executive decision-making between the U.S. and Canada. Risk-takers are very similar in Canada and the U.S., but on risk aversion, those who don't take risks are much more conservative in Canada.
One of the key ways of breaking that barrier and mitigating that effect is education to provide methodology and training and show somebody what an outcome could be. So we support training programs. We believe they can be relatively efficient. They are a key part of building an environment in which productivity is increased.