Evidence of meeting #35 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was municipalities.
A recording is available from Parliament.
5 p.m.
Mayor of Chelsea, Union of Quebec Municipalities
So our mayors' current priority is not necessarily answering questions from the Union des municipalités. But I promise we will have results right after that.
5 p.m.
Bloc
Diane Bourgeois Bloc Terrebonne—Blainville, QC
Please.
Does the representative of the Fédération Québécoise des Municipalités want to add anything?
5 p.m.
President, Fédération Québécoise des Municipalités
In the circumstances, we have to trust the federal government, because it is the only one with the statistics at present. We have no way of ascertaining what a commitment is and what a project actually underway is. I think that is where we want to have as much detail as possible.
My goodness, as one of our former premiers would say, "give us our share" so we can do our work as easily as possible. I can't say it too often: our interlocutor is the Government of Quebec. Let the federal government make agreements with the Government of Quebec, as fast as possible, so we can start our projects and just have one interlocutor to deal with. I think that is the solution, the formula, the recipe, that is the easiest for us to work and understand, the one that will also allow for the necessary adjustments and modulations, given that a number of our communities have needs.
I would like to come back to something said earlier. The infrastructure projects that a number of our small municipalities want to start up are future projects, while in large municipalities there is often an engineering, consultation and research department, that means there are always projects in the box. But we can understand that starting a process of defining an infrastructure project for a smaller community involves numerous steps. The project has to be defined and built, and documented before it is carried out. We have to find ways to ensure that these projects can also be completed within the time allowed.
5 p.m.
Bloc
Diane Bourgeois Bloc Terrebonne—Blainville, QC
Can a representative of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities answer me?
Do you have figures that corroborate this third report?
5 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Federation of Canadian Municipalities
We have presented figures. I want to add that the economic recovery program is much larger, must larger than the corner occupied by municipalities. When it says 90%, that is for the whole thing. Our corner is less than that.
5 p.m.
Bloc
5 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Federation of Canadian Municipalities
[Note from the editor: inaudible]
5 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Yasmin Ratansi
Mr. Martin, for five minutes.
You will be the last questioner, after which we will do a wrap-up, and then we have some committee business to deal with.
5 p.m.
NDP
Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
Very good. I do like having the last word, especially with Mr. Warkentin in the room.
Let me start by saying, and maybe even reminding committee members and witnesses, that we're the government operations and estimates committee of the House of Commons. As such, it's our obligation to challenge the veracity of proposed government spending to test whether it will in fact achieve what it promises to achieve. So when the Government of Canada overspends the budget and spends us into deficit by billions and billions of dollars, it's entirely appropriate for us to be challenging the veracity of that spending, whether it will in fact achieve what it set out to achieve. But they've made it very difficult. As members of Parliament and members of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates, it's strange that we should be relying on you to bring information to us because we can't find out, neither for love nor money, where the spending has taken place. We get rationed little tidbits of information in a lippy sort of backhanded way from junior rookie MPs, backbenchers. We find out little tidbits of information instead of a complete list.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
5:05 p.m.
NDP
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
5:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Yasmin Ratansi
Mr. Warkentin, you said he was “ranting away” and I did not stop you.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Ed Holder Conservative London West, ON
On a point of order, Madam Chair, as likely the “junior rookie MP” at this table, I hope that wasn't intended to be a personal negative comment towards me. I'd like to have negative comments saved for question period, not for committee, please.
5:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Yasmin Ratansi
Mr. Holder, I will ask Mr. Martin to explain himself. Thank you.
Mr. Martin, continue.
5:05 p.m.
NDP
Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
We have to remind ourselves that it was the culture of secrecy that allowed corruption to flourish during the Liberal years, yet the shroud of secrecy has fallen over this particular spending program in a way that we've never seen before.
It's rare as a member of Parliament that you get to witness the genesis of a boondoggle, but I honestly believe we've watched in slow motion a potential boondoggle unfold and flourish and blossom before our eyes. We have an obligation and a duty as members of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates to blow the whistle on that when we're not getting sufficient information to convince us that things are in fact copacetic.
That said, my specific question to our witnesses is regarding social housing. We might be the only developed nation in the world now that doesn't have a national housing strategy. We've offloaded that onto the municipalities. We haven't even offloaded onto the provinces; it's all the way down to the municipalities, with no corresponding stable core funding associated with it.
Even though I understand there will be pickup on the offer of low-interest loans, is it the position of the municipalities that it is an adequate national housing initiative, and where does that stand in the relative wish list of the municipalities in terms of a true commitment to a national housing strategy?
5:05 p.m.
Director, Policy and Research, Federation of Canadian Municipalities
If you're speaking about the housing stimulus funds available in the economic action plan, there's no doubt that the $1 billion available for housing renovations and retrofit is a significant sum. It is only available over a two-year period, because the policy objective of that program is to actually create jobs, first, through investments in housing.
We strongly support that, but there's no question that two years of funding does not represent a long-term national housing plan, which we've been calling for over many years. It's really about the longevity of the funding.
5:05 p.m.
NDP
Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
Could I ask just what is a low-interest loan when the lending rate is already a quarter of 1%? How low do you go when prime is already so ridiculously low?
