Finance Committee on Nov. 16th, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, Ms. Lachance.

Now we're going to get to questions from members. In our first round of questions, each party has up to six minutes to ask you questions, witnesses.

We are starting with MP Morantz for the first six minutes.

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Yedlin, how much longer did you have to go on your statement? Was it another minute or so?

[Deborah Yedlin]

Yes, it was probably a minute or a minute and a half.

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Okay. Why don't you just fire away?

[Deborah Yedlin]

Okay.

Really what I wanted to highlight was the importance of innovation in the energy sector, so I'll just talk about that.

Our legacy in the energy sector has led to Alberta businesses being the pioneers of sustainable energy products, and decarbonization technology is critical to achieving Canada's ambitious climate goals. What we're talking about and looking for is regulatory stability and financial predictability, because this is actually germane to the prosperity of the national economy.

The investment tax credits have been welcomed as an incentive for investment, but there continues to be a lack of clarity on the specifics of these credits, coupled with concerns over the long-term stability and direction of climate policy in Canada. This has meant that capital remains on the sidelines or goes south to take advantage of the IRA, as investors weigh the risks of continued investments in the energy sector.

I would highlight the decision by Carbon Engineering, which was pioneering direct-air capture technology, which was started at the University of Calgary, to develop its inaugural commercial facility in the United States, as one such example. The IRA made the numbers work a little differently than they would have in Canada.

The other thing that we really wanted to emphasize is the importance of the implementation of carbon contracts for difference so that companies can actually rely on a floor price for carbon and be able to go and finance the projects they're interested in financing.

The rest of my submission was about the incentives and the lack of clarity.

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Thank you very much.

You mentioned in the early part of your submission the pause on the carbon tax for home heating, I believe, in the Atlantic provinces. It's become a Pandora's box, a nightmare, for the Liberal government, because they're essentially treating one region of the country differently for political reasons than the rest of the country.

There's a huge fairness issue here. What makes it even worse is that a minister of the government went on a TV interview and actually said that, if western Canadians want the same break, they should elect more Liberals. There are quite a few Liberals in Winnipeg, and they're pretty ineffective, because they couldn't get that same break.

Now, the government will argue that it's across the country and it's a national program, because anyone who heats their house with home heating oil gets the break, of course. I've lived in Winnipeg, Manitoba, all my life and never actually met a single person.... In fact, I didn't even know you could heat your home with home oil until I got into this job. It's all natural gas and some hydroelectricity.

Would you agree that there's a fundamental lack of fairness in not giving a carve-out for home heating across the board to all Canadians?

[Deborah Yedlin]

We are of the view, absolutely, when we talk about the affordability issue, that not every jurisdiction is created equally. In fact, we did write an op-ed that appeared in the Calgary Herald addressing that very issue. It was framed on the clean electricity regulations. Not only are we in a jurisdiction that depends on natural gas for home heating, but it's also very critical to our grid infrastructure. Those are two pieces where we see a blanket policy, and that speaks to what we said in our submission.

Of course, the other piece is the fuel tax on natural gas for the farmers and their heating structures, and in fact not having any alternatives for those.

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Yes. In fact, we had the Minister of the Environment, Minister Guilbeault, say that there would be no more carve-outs as long as he's the environment minister.

Now, Bill C-234, which is I think the bill you were alluding to, is being tied up in the Senate by Liberal-appointed senators right now, but I look forward to its passing and to Minister Guilbeault resigning as cabinet minister, assuming he's a man of his word.

Can you maybe talk about the unfairness when it comes to businesses, because the government has been telling us for eight years that people get back more than they pay. We know now that's not true, because they've created a carve-out for home heating oil in Atlantic Canada. Those people weren't getting back more than they paid. We know businesses, small business people, have never gotten back more than they've paid. Can you comment on the unfairness of that?

[Deborah Yedlin]

What we were trying to point out is that, when we look at small businesses as the engine of this country from an economic standpoint, we need to make sure that everybody has an opportunity to have a sustainable business. When there is an element of unfairness in a policy, that's something we are obviously very much interested in highlighting, because we need to be competitive as a country, and I think this speaks to something else. From an economic productivity standpoint, we need to make sure that everybody has opportunities that they can execute, and we need to make sure that policies are appropriately focused on ensuring that success.

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

On that note, you touched on the issue of foreign credentialization in your statement as well, I believe. One of the policies that our party has brought forward is a Blue Seal program for people who come to Canada who have skills.

We have people who are trained as nurses and doctors who are working in low-wage jobs because they can't get their credentials. If we were in government, we would do whatever we could to make sure that they have the opportunity to prove their credentials at the very earliest opportunity. Is that something that the Calgary chamber is in support of?

[Deborah Yedlin]

We advocate for making sure that the path for credentialing is very clear so that people have access to programs to upscale, re-skill and gain their credentials in Alberta.

I would like to point out that the Alberta government has put in a policy for attracting nurses from around the world, and we have been able to get them through a program at Mount Royal University. It has been oversubscribed, but it's proving to be successful. It's an issue of capacity, so we've figured out how to do that in Alberta from a credentialing standpoint to make sure that we alleviate the pressures in the health care system.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, MP Morantz.

Now we go to MP Dzerowicz, please.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank all of our witnesses for being here today and for the excellent presentations.

I'm going to start very quickly with Mr. McGowan.

Thank you so much for your presentation.

I do so many things I forget sometimes. I co-chair our national immigration and refugee caucus over on the Liberal team, so I know a lot about immigration. I will tell you that your comment around the foreign worker program is very much.... We understand that. I think we did a temporary adjustment just because there was such an urgent need as we were coming out of the pandemic, but we have no desire to bring in more workers as that would continue to create pressure for lowering wages.

The question I have for you is around this. Because our immigration system hasn't adjusted fast enough to be able to bring in some of the skilled labour that we need, there's a number of non-status workers across our country, many of whom have been here for years. They've set themselves up. They have families. One thing we're looking at is normalizing non-status workers. Would that be something that the Alberta Federation of Labour would support?

[Gil McGowan]

I just want, if it's okay, to respond to one of your initial comments. Then I'll respond to the comment on normalization.

With due respect, and I appreciate your saying that you hear our concerns about temporary foreign workers, this government has announced a fast track for the temporary foreign worker program as a pilot program, and we would respectfully ask that you rescind that pilot program. It has been put in place for agricultural workers. It's scheduled to be in place for low-wage workers in the service sector as of January 1. It's a mistake, and we should not be making decisions about how many guest workers come into the country, especially in the low-wage category, in response to lobbying pressures from low-wage employers. Their incentives are all wrong.

The best interests of the public should be decided by policy-makers like you as opposed to responding to low-wage employers who just want to defy the economic laws of gravity, when, in this current context of labour shortage, wages should be going up.

On normalization, we support the idea of normalizing those workers who have been in the province.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Thank you.

Then, on the sustainable jobs front, I had the privilege of getting to Denmark, which has transitioned out of oil and gas into renewable energy. It is very specific about working in two key regional areas to transition its workers.

What's the top advice you have for us as we're moving toward sustainable jobs and moving that forward?

[Gil McGowan]

The top advice is that this government should continue on the track it's on. We've already dealt with the transition for workers in the coal-fired power sector. We're the only province I think that has negotiated a sector-wide just transition package for a group of workers who have been affected by climate policy. It's been very successful, but in oil and gas there's a much bigger group of workers and our members in that sector have been very clear that we don't want economic labour market adjustment policies like training and pension bridging. Those are necessary, but not sufficient.

What we really want is an industrial policy to create jobs in new sectors. We support the investment tax credits. The Americans are leading the way with the IRA. We support labour conditions for things like prevailing wage and training. There's an opportunity to use this investment strategy and investment policy to train the next generation of trades to address the labour shortage that we all identify.

For us, in a nutshell, sustainable jobs and a just transition means industrial policy supported by government in the public interest.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Thank you.

I will shift over to Ms. Yedlin.

Ms. Yedlin, we are in an intangible economy where even in some of our old industries, oil and gas or the auto sector, still need new technologies in order to succeed in the 21st century. Intellectual property is going to be key for future economic success. I would also argue that we need investments in IP education, generation and retention. That will be critical.

What would be your recommendation to government for us to be helpful to businesses in succeeding in the 21st century, given the fact that we are an intangible economy?

[Deborah Yedlin]

Every business's success today depends on the adoption of technology. When we look at numbers right now and our economic productivity, when we rank 29 out of the OECD countries in terms of economic productivity per capita, it's absolutely critical that the technology option is spread throughout the economy. We know that small businesses need to have supports to be able to adopt the technologies that will help make them more competitive.

Having said that, we need to look at how we de-risk technologies and the role that government can play in making sure that companies that do develop technologies have a place where they can develop, scale and commercialize. I want to point to the Canada growth fund as one example. There was an announcement two weeks ago when Deputy Prime Minister Freeland was in Calgary that there was funding of $90 million provided to Eavor Technologies, which is a geothermal company doing a pilot project in Germany.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Do you think that the federal government should be investing in IP education, generation and retention, or do you think that is already strong out there?

[Deborah Yedlin]

I think we should absolutely do that to make sure that we retain the IP. The point made when that announcement was made in Calgary by the CEO of the company was that, if the support wasn't there the company probably would have been sold because they were looking at a sale. This way the IP stays in Canada, and we need to make sure we do more of that to allow the companies that have developed something that is proving to be successful....

The government plays a de-risking role in supporting those innovative technologies, and then they can get out of it. It's not something that they have to be forever invested in. There is a market. You have something that's proven. I would point to the Israeli model. That's exactly what's happened in that company in terms of how they support the commercialization of new technologies, and then the government's mechanism let's them exit. I think that's something that we have to think about very deliberately, because if we want to be a productive and growing economy given the demographic curve that we are facing we have to invest in technology, we have to keep the IP here and we have to create an entrepreneurial culture where people are not afraid to take risks. If we don't do that, we actually will not succeed as a country broadly speaking.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, MP Dzerowicz.

MP Ste-Marie, go ahead, please.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to welcome all the witnesses on this panel. These discussions are very informative.

Unfortunately, we will not have time to ask all the questions we would like. You can be assured that we are taking notes and we will make sure that your recommendations are included in the committee's report.

Thanks to Ms. Lachance and Ms. Laurin, from the Association canadienne-française de l'Alberta, for being here and for your testimony. I am going to come back to parts of your presentation. One thing you said is that the funds announced in the action plan for the official languages are not enough to meet the needs. As well, you point out that the plan was tabled seven months ago, but the money has still not been paid out to you and you have only until March 31 to spend it.

I would therefore invite you to say some more about that. In concrete terms, what does that represent for your organization and the organizations you represent and for the services you offer and the choices you have to make?

[Nathalie Lachance]

This is a huge challenge for us. We have about 50 francophone organizations, but many of them are quite small.

We tell them they will be receiving more money but we do not know exactly how much they will be allocated or when they will receive the money. They will therefore have only a few months to spend it, and this puts a huge amount of pressure on them and really limits their capacity to build in the long term. Predictability of funding is necessary to be able to build for the future.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

This is certainly concerning. We hope this situation is being heard. We also often hear municipalities tell us that the money is paid late and they have to spend it in a short period of time, and this makes it very difficult to predict. It is disappointing to hear that this also affects your important organization.

You also talked about organizations that have no core funding, such as community media. We know that the media are going through an unprecedented crisis, with the web giants pocketing revenue. What is the current situation for francophone community media in Alberta?

[Nathalie Lachance]

The situation is very critical.

Francophone community media in Alberta are crucial for the survival of our francophone community. That is how we pass down our history, share our day-to-day experience, and reach one another in ways that we are not able to do in the major media, where we cannot be heard, or in the local media, where our voice is drowned out. It is therefore important and crucial that we receive funding.

All community media in Alberta have significant challenges to meet. The beacon of Albertan francophonie, Le Franco, has survived this year, but the paper has had incredible problems. The work done by a new team, who rolled up their sleeves, and by my predecessor as president of the ACFA is really what managed to get Le Franco, which continues to work with us, back on its feet. This newspaper represents a very long tradition and is crucial for the community: it is our history.

Federal government departments really have to be encouraged to invest and to spend their advertising budget as they used to do in the past: using community media, which are followed by ordinary people, by a public that could not be reached otherwise.