Industry Committee on March 10th, 2011

[Siobhan Coady, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

It's $225 million over three years. Now you're saying it might be over four or five years. And you'll continue what I'm going to call “a call to ensure and drive broadband initiatives”.

I would like to suggest, if I may, in the list of projects, some more for Newfoundland and Labrador.

I understand you're doing a push-out saying we're looking for projects, but clearly for rural Canada if you're not getting those programs, then perhaps we have to do more to ensure there is a broadband initiative for the entire country. It does concern me, when I know the needs in Newfoundland and Labrador, that we're not even falling under this program at this point.

[Richard Dicerni]

We're trying to do the best we can with the available resources that have been awarded to us.

[Siobhan Coady, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

May I make a plug then for budget for you in saying if you need more resources--because broadband is that critical, I think, to Canada's success--we do need to move rather rapidly on ensuring we have adequate broadband across our country.

[Richard Dicerni]

I believe the minister in his various remarks has noted the importance of broadband to a digital economy.

[Siobhan Coady, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Thank you.

Do I have more time?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

No. You're about two and a half minutes over.

[Siobhan Coady, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

You're so kind to me. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Because the Conservative Party said it had exhausted all its questions and everybody else said they had just a little question, I thought I would have some discretion there.

Mr. Cardin.

[Serge Cardin, Bloc, Sherbrooke, QC]

When were supplementary estimates (B) approved?

[Richard Dicerni]

They were approved in September 2010.

[Serge Cardin, Bloc, Sherbrooke, QC]

There is a question on my mind. When we consult the various sections, we see that since September, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council have had their transfers decreased, and that afterwards, there was quite a substantial adjustment to the appropriations. The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council had its transfer cut by $462,000 and then there was a request for an adjustment of $17 million. I know that these are not huge amounts, when we compare the one to the other. The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council underwent a cut of $324,000, followed by an adjustment of $2 million. On the one hand, the transfer is decreasing and on the other hand, it is increasing during a period of time that is actually quite short. Therefore, at certain times, we can make a bit of headway, and then it's one step forward, two steps back.

[Richard Dicerni]

The big expenditure for both granting councils is due to the fact that in the 2010 budget, the government granted additional support for Centres of Excellence in marketing and in research. Before these votes can be approved, the granting agency must—in this case, it is the granting council—make a presentation to Treasury Board and Treasury Board must approve it. Once this is done, it is included in the supplementary appropriations. Therefore, there is always some turnaround time—you could even say a delay—that comes from the government's internal decision procedures. In fact, once the sums of money in the budget have been determined, the departments—in the case at hand, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council—are not allowed to spend it before the presentation is made to Treasury Board to define the modalities and the way that the money will be spent. After that, it must be approved by Treasury Board. This often explains why it takes so long.

[Serge Cardin, Bloc, Sherbrooke, QC]

Then, there are transfers because the decision-making process does not proceed at the same pace as the projects that are submitted, or sometimes it is because projects are cancelled.

As representatives from Quebec, my colleague and myself were just wondering about the total amount of grants and contributions paid to Quebec, as compared to the Department of Industry's budget as a whole. Can we get this information?

[Richard Dicerni]

There are three big granting councils in Canada: one is for health, another is for sciences and engineering and another is for social sciences. We can ask all three to send us information. The one that deals with health reports to the Minister of Health, but I can ask for it.

[Serge Cardin, Bloc, Sherbrooke, QC]

When we look at the industry sector, we see, as a whole...

[Richard Dicerni]

It is important to emphasize that this money is not paid mainly to institutions, but rather to researchers. The researchers are the ones who apply to the various granting councils to get their research projects approved. Thus, for this year, 2010-2011, we can verify how much was granted by the councils and we can send this information to the committee through the chair.

[Serge Cardin, Bloc, Sherbrooke, QC]

I would be very grateful to you for that.

[Richard Dicerni]

In another committee, your colleague Mr. Vincent wanted to know what Quebec had received within the knowledge infrastructure program. I sent him the list, including the MiQro Innovation project at Sherbrooke University.

[Serge Cardin, Bloc, Sherbrooke, QC]

I think I have seen that.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Just for fairness, I'm being kind of discreet on the time here, but Mr. Stoffer, you said you just had one question?

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

I have two quick ones.

A quick statement: the figures regarding the amount that goes out in grants, the amount that goes out on loans and the amount that comes back, and the repayable part would be helpful for the discussion.

And I want to give you the one opportunity. As you know, there are several think tanks out there that think these economic agencies should be a thing of the past. And you constantly hear the criticism of “these agencies pick winners and losers”. I know the success of ACOA. I won't speak for Western Economic Diversification Canada or FedDev. I've worked with ACOA over the years, and I know the successes you've had.

I know when there are headlines in the paper, you folks don't get a chance to react like that. So I want to give you the chance now, Peter, to state why ACOA is important, where you see the future of your agency, and basically to say that Canadian taxpayers do get value for the agencies such as ACOA.

[Peter Hogan]

I can't really speak to the future of ACOA, but what I can speak to is the success rate we've had. And as we mentioned earlier, we will get you some details on that.

ACOA's priorities relate very much to focusing on innovation and productivity, trade development, and community development. So from that point of view, we've had a lot of good successes in terms of seeing companies get into the export business and become more innovative with our Atlantic investment fund--our flagship program, AIF.

We've invested something in the order of $600 million plus, which is aimed at commercializing research and development in cooperation with the business sector and university sector, and which in turn has led, and will continue to lead, to even more jobs being created, revenues generated from the products, and services developed as a result of those investments.

We could probably provide, as a follow-up, a better, more detailed description, information around some of the successes we've had. But certainly from our end, a lot of independent work has been done in the past that attests to the success the agency has had. And we'd be glad to provide that to you afterwards.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

I take it that the NDP rests now.

We have a brief question from Mr. Rota, and then we'll go back to Mr. Bouchard.

[Anthony Rota, Liberal, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Dicerni, I have just a quick question. While I was asking my question of the minister on FedNor's funding, Mr. Wallace rushed over, and it was a little bit disruptive, but we won't discuss that....

I just want to clarify, Mr. Dicerni, what was the book or the document that Mr. Wallace brought you, and why was the information I wanted not included there?