Finance Committee on Oct. 29th, 2012

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Once again, thanks to all the witnesses for being here.

I'm going to continue with Mr. Myers for just a moment.

Mr. Myers, I appreciate the accelerated capital cost allowance suggestion you've made; the permanency of it is what you suggested. What I'm wondering is whether you can help us understand.... In a time when we're trying to return to balanced budgets, if we're going to inject a program like this that's going to require more funding, is there somewhere that you see we could scale back in order to afford this, without having to raise taxes and those kinds of things? Is there anywhere you suggest we might scale back, because the program we have in place just isn't working?

[Jayson Myers]

I think it's very important to understand that the accelerated capital cost allowance is a cashflow issue. It's not necessarily a major investment issue. Companies that depreciate all of their equipment then begin to pay tax, so the government begins to collect that tax after three years. The longer the measure is in place, the less money it actually costs the government to extend it.

Are there other areas where we can scale back? I think we do need what the Jenkins committee was intended to do, which is a full review of our support programs, not just for business investment in R and D, but for all federal investments in R and D here. For federal money going into R and D programs across the country, I think we really need to figure out what the objectives are, what we want as a result of those. Are we doing this in the best coordinated way? We should make investments in machinery, equipment, and technology part of that review as well.

I certainly see—

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

I have a couple of other questions, so I'm sorry to interrupt. I'm interested in the voucher program that you mentioned in your recommendations. Your organization is fantastic at producing different charts and so on. Have you actually put down in writing the voucher program? It might save us some time. I'd really like to explore it. I'm not going to have time in two minutes—

[Jayson Myers]

Sure.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

—but I'd love to see how you envision it working, because it makes sense, just the suggestion, but I don't know how you would put it in place and how much it might cost.

[Jayson Myers]

I don't really think it would cost anything more than what is already being made available. What we're suggesting here is that instead of funding directly being provided to colleges or universities for research, at least some of that funding be made available to businesses to then invest in the research or the support services they need for innovation. It's an issue more of redirecting funds than providing more money.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

I see.

[Jayson Myers]

All this is doing is providing the money to the businesses to make the decisions themselves, and to strengthen the demand for the good research that is happening in our universities and colleges, rather than trying to push the research out into the marketplace.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

Very good.

You mentioned international students. What are the barriers for us to attract those Brazilian students who now have the scholarships? How can we open up so we're receiving most of them?

[Paul Davidson]

Canada is doing very well on the Brazil file by having the Governor General, two cabinet ministers, a number of backbench MPs, and 30 presidents go there together. The governor of Brazil committed to send 12,000 students to Canada. We are the second largest beneficiary of the program, second only to the United States. It represents an investment by the Government of Brazil of about $500 million to send their students to Canada. That's just one example.

You asked about barriers. One of the ongoing challenges is to ensure the successful processing of visas. It sounds mundane and mechanical, but we have seen significant increases in demand in India, China, Brazil, and other target markets. With that, resources are necessary to ensure that visas are processed in a timely way. We're in a competitive race with other countries in terms of issuing the visas and getting the students here. That's just one of the barriers.

I could go on, but I know time is—

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

Is the Brazilian program the one where you mentioned about 75,000 scholarships and whatnot, and the 26,000 that came from the private sector? Do you know how much the scholarships are that they are providing? I'm curious to know how much it would cost us to do it.

[Paul Davidson]

I will get you a dollar figure, but it includes transportation, accommodation, and tuition for the year. It's a one-year scholarship. They need to return to Brazil. It's for both undergraduate students and for Ph.D. students.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

I would be very curious to see the stats on it.

[Paul Davidson]

Absolutely.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

And to see how we might be able to look at it.

[Paul Davidson]

Terrific. Thank you.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

That's awesome. Thanks.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Scott Brison]

Thank you, Ms. Glover.

Thank you to each of you for being with us today and for your interventions. It's a really great panel. I wish we had more time, particularly thinking about these issues around post-secondary education, aboriginal and first nations people, and the honour of skilled trades. It takes more than an hour and half at the finance committee, but we really appreciate the quality of your interventions today, and we hope we can reflect that quality in our report.

Thank you. Members, that's it.