Government Operations Committee on June 4th, 2009

[Frank Vermaeten]

Perhaps I could just add one small clarification on that. It is important to recognize that the government froze the EI rate at $1.73 for 2009 and 2010, so that means this is providing a direct stimulus because the rates aren't going up, and that's a significant saving to both employers and employees.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

You can sympathize with our situation in trying to see where the stimulus money is really creating direct jobs. Again, we were asked to buy a pig in a poke. We were asked to sign a blank cheque essentially with this vote 35 and its almost unprecedented urgency. The House leaders were called together for a late night meeting, an all-party emergency meeting. The minister, the President of the Treasury Board, the Minister of Finance's people were there, and the PMO, PCO. This had to happen because we had to get dollars on the streets and money in people's pockets.

If you would just change the eligibility rules for EI, a lot more people would qualify and a lot of people would at least be spending money that they currently don't have.

I don't see the concrete measures here. I see lots of very virtuous, long-range human resources planning, but that is no consolation for the hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs that are being lost, etc., nor does it get money spent and re-spent. We would have been better off just handing everybody a $1,000 bill. Well, no, it's only Karlheinz Schreiber who uses $1,000 bills, but even George Bush just sent everybody a cheque for $600, right? That would in fact get money into the economy and be spent a lot faster than through a lot of the plans that you're bringing to us here today.

[The Chair, Liberal, Derek Lee]

Thank you.

That concludes the eight-minute rounds.

I now turn to Mr. Dhaliwal of the Liberal Party.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

I'd like to thank all the panel members here for coming to talk to us.

My first question is for Mr. Watson.

I was travelling in western Canada. We talked about the recreation fund, and I was amazed how little knowledge the councillors had about this recreation fund. What kind of communication strategy do you have to communicate between the two orders of the government?

[Daniel Watson]

Thank you for the question.

One of the things about this program is that it is very similar to a number of others that we actually run because we do operate a number of infrastructure programs on a regular basis.

Many of the projects that we expect to see applications from, and in fact have seen applications from, are from many of the players we dealt with in the past who are quite familiar with the general approach of the program.

What we have done is this. The program was announced on May 11, so it's now just about three weeks ago that the program was announced. We've held information sessions throughout many different provinces. Obviously there are only so many that you can hold in a three-week period, but we've held dozens of those sessions. We've been in direct contact with many different municipalities--certainly not all of them; there are hundreds, of course, across western Canada. But we've been in touch with a great number of them, and we've had conversations with provincial governments on many of these issues as well, because as you will know about the program, we will fund a certain proportion and others will have to come up with other shares of the funding. So in many cases, one of the best avenues for disseminating some of this information is our contacts with the provincial governments.

We've worked with individual proponents. We've worked with municipalities. We've worked with provinces. We have our own communications materials. In fact, on our website you can do everything from finding the application form to finding a bunch of the background.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Newton—North Delta, BC]

When I look at this timeline between May 11 and May 30, it's a two-week timeframe. You are saying you had these communications towards the end, and then they had to fill in the application. I personally found that a lot of councillors out there--I don't know who you or your department were talking to--weren't aware.

When you say you had communications with these orders of government--provincial and local governments--did you ask them how many new jobs they were going to create when you gave them these funds?

[Daniel Watson]

Yes, and we made them put that in writing too. On the application form they have to put that information in writing for us. We will assess that to see if we think those are the right numbers.

If I can speak a little bit about the communications on this, I think by the end of day on budget day back in January, we were receiving our first calls about how people could get access to this money, and it hasn't let up since then. Since May 11--we've been tracking our calls--we've had just about 2,000 calls by this point in time. Even in that timeframe we've had just under 800 applications given to us from across western Canada, so it's had a very significant uptake.

If you were to add up all of the numbers of the total value of the projects that people have proposed, it would be a number that would be far in excess even of the amounts that we imagined we would get in. While there may certainly be people who would want and perhaps need some further information, as I say, we've had over 2,000 contacts specific to the program, which we've tracked, and we have just under 800 applications.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Newton—North Delta, BC]

When you say that you've already had dialogue with them about how many new jobs they would create, can you tell me the number of new jobs that would be created in western Canada, given this funding?

[Daniel Watson]

When you get the application, you see how many jobs people are proposing to create. There are two ways of going about this. As I mentioned earlier, Statistics Canada has an internationally recognized model done by statisticians--so it's not done by program people like me but by people who are professionals in the area of statistical analysis and tracking econometric data--who have been able to demonstrate over the years, through practical experience, that infrastructure expenditures of a particular type will be able to produce a particular number of jobs, so that's one way we look at it.

The other way of looking at it is again to look at the projects themselves, because different types of projects require a higher or lower number of employees, depending on the nature of the project itself.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Newton—North Delta, BC]

You're passing the buck to Statistics Canada. Certainly they will give us those numbers later on, but immediately, when we say due diligence, had you, or your department, or the government done the due diligence to make sure that a certain number of jobs would be created? That number should be easy. You're telling me there are 1,200 or 800 applications that you have received. It should simply say, this many applications will create that many jobs.

I'm a numbers guy. I come from an engineering background. To me, in all these details, all I am interested in are the numbers. Are there new jobs, and how many are there? You haven't answered that question.

[Daniel Watson]

No, we received them last Friday. Today is Thursday. We're still going through the 800 applications. Certainly each and every one of them, in order to be accepted, is going to have to tell us exactly how many jobs they propose to create. Our due diligence process will assess whether or not we think they're being accurate, and that's the process we're in right now. As I say, we've been at it for six days, looking at these 800 applications.

[The Chair, Liberal, Derek Lee]

Thank you.

Ms. Bourgeois, you have five minutes.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Ladies and gentlemen, I must admit that I'm a bit disappointed. Perhaps I was dreaming, but I was expecting much more definitive answers from you. I asked you a specific question about the planning of the time and performance indicators that you should have done or that you did do. I was expecting you to tell me that you had prepared such plans and that you were expecting a certain number of jobs to be created in the next month or within three months. When a department draws up plans with additional funding, officials can expect 100 jobs, for example, will be created by a particular date. At that time, the department was heading in that direction.

But this morning, I am not satisfied with the answers I have heard, and I think that several of us are not satisfied in this particular case. We understand that you cannot tell us how many jobs will be created and that you find yourself in a vicious circle. We are putting you up against the wall, and clearly you are not able to answer our questions. We know that you do good work, that you have to wait for the applications and that the applications have to be approved. In any event, this is how I am reacting to the situation.

Mr. Lindsey, in response to a question from my colleague about tourism, you said that you were primarily looking for events that would attract people. You want events that will attract many people, but will not necessarily create employment. The Classique internationale de Blainville takes place in my riding. I have been asked to create summer jobs for this competition, and the town of Blainville is also creating jobs for this event. We are expecting 25,000 people to attend the competition. If 50,000 or 60,000 people come and we do not have any money to create jobs, what are we to do?

[The Chair, Liberal, Derek Lee]

I think that's directed to Industry Canada and Mr. Lindsey.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

My question is for Mr. Lindsey.

[Kevin Lindsey]

I wasn't sure, Ms. Bourgeois, if you had finished or not. Pardon me.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Yes, I do talk a lot, but that's no big deal.

Go ahead, my time is running out!

[Kevin Lindsey]

I'll be brief.

The thinking is, given the economic climate, that there's a serious possibility that the number of tourists coming to Canada will go down. I think that's a legitimate concern. And to the extent that the concern materializes, events would hire fewer people, hotels would require fewer staff, and restaurants would require fewer staff. So we're trying to provide additional resources for those events to promote themselves so that they can try, as much as possible, to maintain attendance, and hopefully increase it, with a view to increasing the number of people who are employed directly in the event--in supporting the event and helping to carry it out--but also in the residual areas, such as the hospitality industry, the hotels, the motels, restaurants, and the incremental sales of gasoline.

There will certainly be an employment impact, but it's exceedingly difficult, particularly in advance of the events, to quantify. But certainly the expectation is that there will be an employment impact. You create employment in this world by getting people to the events.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Mr. Lindsey, did you reach an agreement with the Government of Quebec regarding the Recreational Infrastructure Canada Program and the infamous $500 million for arenas, pools and other recreational facilities?

[Kevin Lindsey]

First of all, with respect to that program,

This is a program that we share responsibility for with other federal partners.

The portion that Industry Canada will deliver is valued at about $68 million and the applications for access to that program have just closed.

Now, Industry Canada doesn't deliver that program in Quebec. Industry Canada only delivers that program in the province of Ontario. In Quebec the program will be delivered by the economic development agency responsible for Quebec.

So I'm afraid I can't provide an answer to your question.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

...through Economic Development Canada.

Are you telling me that the $500 million have been allocated only to Ontario?

[The Chairman]

Thank you, thank you.

[Kevin Lindsey]

No.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Pardon me, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Derek Lee]

We will now move to Mr. Gourde. You have five minutes.