Canadian Heritage Committee on June 10th, 2010

[Ruby Dhalla, Liberal, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

Was there any money left over in terms of the availability of what existed once the 47 projects were approved?

[Richard Dicerni]

That's where it was felt that there would be more impact, more positive impact, by redeploying some of those resources to the Canadian Tourism Commission so that they could capitalize on the success of the Olympic and Paralympic winter games, in order to reach out to some of the emerging tourist markets, because this again, I'm going to emphasize, is part of a broader strategy to improve or increase the visitor economy of Canada.

[Ruby Dhalla, Liberal, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

So one out of every two projects, despite the positive recommendation by the department, is not approved by the minister.

[Richard Dicerni]

This program was part of the economic action plan. A certain amount of money was allocated to it, and the minister identified projects, as previously discussed, that were more regional in nature. There was greater penetration across the country than had been the case in previous years. There was a 30% and 40% increase in the number of cities. So that's the choice.

[Ruby Dhalla, Liberal, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

When the minister is approving one out of every two projects—so there's a 50% approval rate despite the positive recommendation by the department—do you think politics could play a role of any sort in his decision?

[Royal Galipeau, Conservative, Ottawa—Orléans, ON]

Only when Liberals are in charge.

[Richard Dicerni]

It would be extraordinarily imprudent of me to speculate upon such a hypothetical question.

[Ruby Dhalla, Liberal, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

Okay. So you don't know what criteria the minister is basing his decision on, then.

[Richard Dicerni]

I believe good judgment, good assessments of where the projects would have good tourism impacts, and if you look across some of those projects, such as the Grand Prix in Trois-Rivières, the Régates de Valleyfield—

[Ruby Dhalla, Liberal, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

But all 88 projects received that positive recommendation by the department.

[Richard Dicerni]

I'm sorry, I should just qualify that. We reviewed them in regard to eligibility. We reviewed them in the context of whether they met program criteria. There's a small difference between doing that and actually recommending the 88 projects.

[Ruby Dhalla, Liberal, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you. We'll move on now.

Mr. Pomerleau, please.

[Roger Pomerleau, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for coming to talk to us today. I am very pleased that my colleague Mr. Simms raised the example of summer jobs, which we, as members of Parliament, look after in our ridings, because that is the only program where we play exactly the role of yourself and the Minister, overall. Under that program, we distribute funds for summer jobs for students, figures ranging from $3,000 to $4,000, to businesses or organizations that agree to hire a student for the summer, for a certain number of weeks.

Naturally, nearly all of us, in our ridings, receive applications every year totalling $1 million. Personally, I have $240,000 to distribute, which is about the same amount as all members have. We receive about four to five times as many applications as we can fill, and we have to find ways of distributing the money transparently and intelligently. We set up a system similar to yours: we have pre-established criteria, a defined analytical grid, a deadline for people to apply and a deadline for giving them an answer. Those people have to hire a student for the summer and guarantee the student something, and if we don't give them an answer by a certain date, the student will finish school and go to work somewhere else. They have to jump at the first job they find. People may receive money and not be able to find a student to fill the position, or vice versa. So we have to have specific deadlines, and we abide by them because we know the money will be distributed intelligently if we do that, and it won't be if we don't.

The purpose of the entire operation is to be as transparent as possible, because it is public money, we know that, because we can be called on to answer for everything we do, and also because we want each of the organizations that does business with us to be aware that this is a transparent method. We provide reasons, but only on request, for the decisions made, that is, if we are asked for the criteria, for the analytical grid, we will give them to people. If we aren't asked, we don't have to do it, but if we are asked, people are given everything.

In the case before us today, I note that the criteria changed in midstream, something we would never do. I'm not talking about criteria for applying or eligibility criteria. Criteria for analyzing and selecting, for the projects, were changed in midstream without people being informed. That is an anti-transparent measure that is not shown anywhere, people were not informed, and it changed the entire way funds were distributed, without people having anything to say about it. I think they are entitled to think that it wasn't transparent.

I also support my colleague, who uses words that are occasionally weak: $8 million has been "misappropriated". It was misappropriated in terms of the pre-established criteria for this program, when that money should have been given to businesses that were clearly defined at the outset. In fact, the Canadian Tourism Commission did not meet those criteria. It can always be said that the money was used well, that it was well spent, that it was used for tourism, that nobody stole it, but the fact remains that in terms of the program criteria, that money was misappropriated, and that is completely anti..., anti... In any event, there is nothing transparent about it, in my opinion.

I would like to hear your comments on that.

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

The word you're looking for is "anti-transparent".

[Richard Dicerni]

I will make two comments. First, in terms of the issue of misappropriation, a government always has the right, and even the responsibility, if it wants to reallocate funds... If that had been done under cover of darkness and there had been no transfer, agreed, but it was done in a press release. The Minister clearly said that in a context of supporting the tourism sector, he was going to direct additional funding, on top, to the Canadian Tourism Commission. The year before, a fund had been set aside for the Canadian Tourism Commission, which he decided to top up. I don't think this amounts to misappropriation of funds; rather, it is a government decision to reallocation funds to other activities.

[Roger Pomerleau, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

"Yeah."

[Richard Dicerni]

Second, I am also aware of the example Mr. Simms talked about concerning summer jobs. About 30 or 40 years ago, I was hired under the Local Initiatives Program. I was actually on the team that recommended that some changes be made to expand the role of members of Parliament. At the time, they were programs that had to be supported over the years and had to be repeated from year to year. The same thing applies to the student jobs program. We hope it will be a program that will be supported over the years.

In the case that concerns us, it was a very specific program, lasting two years. This year is the last year. There will be no more grants next year, as the member said. I don't expect to have the privilege of appearing before your committee next year to talk about this program.

So we have to ask whether it was worth it to invest in what I might call a certain "infrastructure", to train people, and so on, for a program that is in fact ending this year. In the department's budgets for next year, there are no appropriations for this program.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you.

We'll go to Mr. Uppal, and then we're going to go to Mr. Rodriguez.

Mr. Uppal, please.

[Tim Uppal, Conservative, Edmonton—Sherwood Park, AB]

Thank you.

We've heard that there were more projects approved this year than last year; more people and more communities have been touched by this funding. You have said that it's made a positive impact on people. Can you explain a little bit about the positive impact to these communities that this funding brings?

[Richard Dicerni]

I think I will defer to some of my colleagues, who are perhaps closer to the...

Marie-Josée, you could perhaps speak to some of those projects that this year received funding that had not received funding in the first year.

[Marie-Josée Thivierge]

Thank you, Deputy.

Essentially, there were three results or three objectives to this program: to try to sustain or increase the number of out-of-country/out-of-province tourists, to grow the revenues for the event, and to sustain or grow the revenues in the community in which the event was being held. The benefits that would accrue as a result of the funding under the program would be to the event itself but also to the small businesses, restaurants, and hotels in the community where the event was held. So it does have a broader reach into that community.

In terms of the actual economic impacts, every recipient under the program was asked to submit, as the deputy noted earlier, an economic impact study. Those economic impact studies had to be submitted for year one recipients at the end of the fiscal year. We are now, in fact, in the process of reviewing what are some of the benefits that have accrued as a result of this project.

One thing to note is that of the first group of recipients in year one, of the 60 which were through those 26 cities, 13 chose not to reply in year two and two were not eligible in year two. Of the 47 that were funded in year two, 19 were new recipients in nine additional cities. So the reach has indeed been broader.

[Tim Uppal, Conservative, Edmonton—Sherwood Park, AB]

The idea was to bolster tourism locally and across Canada, and also help the Canadian economy, as part of the economic action plan. Can you tell us, in a broader sense from some of the preliminary numbers you have, a little bit about how that's helped the economy across Canada, how that's impacted the economy? Do you have preliminary ideas from those numbers?

[Marie-Josée Thivierge]

We don't at this time. What we do know is that the tourism industry was quite significantly impacted by the economic downturn. We know, for example, that employment fell by 2%. We know that revenues declined in this industry. So we do know that the program, which had an economic focus, came at a time when the tourism industry was in need of further support.

[Richard Dicerni]

I could just briefly add that some proponents have said this program made a very unique and extraordinarily timely contribution, where it gave them just that bit of additional funding to get them over what was a horrible period of time in the summer of 2009, Stratford being one, the Jazz Fest in Montreal being another.