Finance Committee on Oct. 20th, 2014

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

That was for the following year.

[Catherine Cobden]

We were trying to say that was the estimate for 2013.

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

It's a growing thing. I understand. Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Nathan Cullen]

Thank you, Ms. Cobden.

We're going over to Mr. Van Kesteren, for up to seven minutes.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

It's seven minutes?

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Nathan Cullen]

We decided that earlier. I wanted to revisit it with committee. Given how many folks we have left, we'll be right up to 6:30. If committee members are fine with that—the last member may have just a bit shorter time—if we're okay with seven minutes, then we'll proceed that way.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you all for coming.

Mr. McKenna, I had your people in and we had a great discussion. I told them about Chatham-Kent—Essex. By the way, thank you for this. With 351 tourism businesses, and 5,125.... That's pretty significant.

I have to tell you a little bit about Chatham-Kent—Essex. If you've never been in that part of the world—and Mr. Shipley will testify to this—it's the greatest agricultural area, with possibly the exception of his riding, but I doubt it. Anyway, we don't have a whole lot to offer in the way of tourism initially, but once you get into the place you start to realize that it is really a great place.

I have to tell you that when I was a kid, we had Rondeau Park. It's still there. If you were a kid you didn't want to go anywhere else but Rondeau Park. It had swimming—I think four beaches—horseback riding, archery, bicycles. It just went on and on. The place was packed. I remember going there when I went to camp one time. I think I was in grade 8 or something like that. The Americans would come in droves with their campers.

Then one day it was decided that we really shouldn't open that park up to people; somebody decided that we should keep it for the animals. They pushed aside the bicycle business, the archery, the horseback riding, and they closed off a significant part of it where we used to camp and swim, and they stopped maintaining certain areas, and guess what? The Americans quit coming.

I would submit to you, sir, that you could advertise until the cows come home, but they won't come back, because it just plain isn't any fun anymore.

I don't know if we're unique in our neck of the woods, and I'm not even criticizing that decision. Somebody made that decision, and if people decide that's what they want to do, then that's what they want to do, but it killed our tourism business. It didn't just kill that. If you're familiar—and Mr. Joanis would know this, as an economist—with the unguided hand, you'll see how the one leads to the next, and how our communities were impacted by that busy....

We do have the best water. It's not in that western basin; it's past that. It's much warmer than in other areas. It's clean water. It has everything going, and that's just one area.

I didn't talk about boating yet, and I don't want to take up all my time, but that was another area. The place used to be crowded with boats, and then they decided to get rid of the boats. They took the docks off the lake, and weeds grew in the bay, and you can't boat there anymore either.

What we still have is an interesting river called the Thames—the English always name things after where they've come from. The French called it La Tranche, and probably for a good reason, because it is kind of a trench. The Americans—we're near Detroit—used to come down Lake St. Clair, and they'd go down this little river, and it was picturesque. It still is; it's a beautiful thing too. We had docks in the city of Chatham—I think we accommodated about 200 of them—and at one point that place was just like Rondeau Park. It was packed. Then we decided that you really shouldn't go any faster than five kilometres an hour. It's about 40 kilometres to the mouth, so do the math and you can figure out how long it takes to get there. It's nice for a while, but after about half an hour you've seen enough of trees and bush and everything else. That industry was killed too.

I applaud you, and I'm asking you what we should do in beautiful Chatham-Kent—Essex to revive our tourism business again if we killed the goose. How can we get that back? What would you suggest?

[David McKenna]

I would suggest that you have to become a consumer-based economy, so you have to be a guest service based economy. To me it sounds as if some of the decisions—

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

The Americans don't want to do that. They want to come and camp.

[David McKenna]

Well, if you've removed all the opportunity for them, then you've removed your ability to provide that service.

I think municipality by municipality they'd have to look at that, and either embrace it or say it's not for them.

I do a lot of consulting with small towns, and they say they want to be in the tourism business. I say, “Great. You need to open your coffee shop before noon, and you need to have your hotels open on Christmas”, and those sorts of things.

I think it's an adaptive thing. It's not that if you build it, they will come, but if you really strategically plan your operations, then that will be attractive to people to come to visit—especially in your neck of the woods.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Joanis, we had a conversation earlier about how things have changed and society has changed. I was looking for an economist and I couldn't find one. Remember what Harry Truman said about economists, but we won't quote him at this point.

I really want to get your input on this because we have spent significantly less on infrastructure. Isn't it true that, as I said to Mr. McKenna, societal changes have occurred and the moneys that were allocated to that—and I think it was 5% or 6% back in the sixties—started shifting in another direction? Isn't that a fact, and aren't we paying the price for that decision today? I'm thinking of health care and services that we provide that we didn't provide in the sixties. We robbed Peter to pay Paul. Is that not one of the reasons, maybe the biggest reason, that we've lost so much of that infrastructure money?

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Nathan Cullen]

Mr. Joanis, you have only one minute to answer the question

[Dr. Marcelin Joanis]

A number of factors underlie this issue.

Indeed, we have noted a downward trend in infrastructure investments, not only in Canada, but also around the world. Today, we see that there are shortcomings in that area. Infrastructure has gotten too old. That is why the IMF is sort of taking everyone to task by asking that countries once again start investing in infrastructure.

We have to wonder where that downward trend comes from. It should be pointed out that health, education and infrastructure are not funded in the same way. Basically, infrastructure is financed through debt, while health and education expenditures are planned within the existing budgets.

I think there is a way to increase our investments in infrastructure without necessarily dipping into the funding set aside for health and education. I think it is possible to do both.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Nathan Cullen]

Thank you, Mr. Joanis.

Thanks, Mr. Van Kesteren.

We'll move to Mr. Adler, for seven minutes, please.

[Mark Adler, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

Thank you to everybody for being here today.

As my time is limited, I want to focus on Mr. McKenna. Mr. McKenna, what is the dollar value of tourism to the Canadian economy?

[David McKenna]

It's $84 billion.

[Mark Adler, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

Where does that rank in terms of industrial sectors?

[David McKenna]

In Canada?

[Mark Adler, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

Yes.

[David McKenna]

It's fourth in Canada, and I can tell you it's third in Alberta.

[Mark Adler, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

Okay. How many people are employed in this sector roughly?

[David McKenna]

It would be in the neighbourhood of 600,000, give or take.

[Mark Adler, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

That would certainly rank within the top 10.

[David McKenna]

Yes. We're by far the largest employer of youth in the country.

[Mark Adler, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

What does the empirical evidence show are the top three tourist draws in the country?