Environment Committee on Oct. 3rd, 2012

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Merci, monsieur le président.

I want to say thank you to all of you, first of all, for being here today. We had originally voted against Bill C-370 because we wanted to make sure we had some more dialogue on it. I know Gord and I have had some conversations about this. The reason we had not supported it originally was because we had been trying to find some costing, and whether there had been any costing done. Everywhere we turned and asked, the answer was, no, no, no, we don't have anything. That's why I figured we needed to actually do the due diligence to make sure that it wasn't going to cost an exorbitant amount of taxpayer dollars to change the name of a park.

I'd wanted to know if there were actually any public consultations that were done, and what the local municipalities were saying, so thank you for addressing some of my questions. I was sitting here going, okay, cross that question off, cross that question off, so thank you for being so thorough in your presentations.

Our main concern was fiscal responsibility, and, Ms. St. Claire, you mentioned some of the plans, the changes to the signage and how you're only going to be changing four of the large signage panels immediately, and whatnot, and that would be the only source of costs. Is that the only foreseeable cost that you see? If not, what other costings have been done of this entire project?

[Kim St. Claire]

We do see signage as being the major part of the cost. That's when I mentioned that we plan on phasing it in over 10 years, and maybe having something temporary for some of the other major signs. We're still figuring out the numbers, actually, just because there are a lot of islands to count. This is going to give us an opportunity as well to double check and make sure that we've got the right number of signs in the right places. It will be a longer-term phase-in of the new signage.

Things such as changing websites and such are essentially cost neutral. As I mentioned, this particular publication is put out every year, so we would simply be reprinting it next year, or whenever it happens, and in subsequent years we would be reprinting it with that new name.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Thank you.

I just want to make sure I understood correctly, that we don't actually have a final costing of the entire project, other than just the four large signage panels.

[Kim St. Claire]

There are more signs than that. The four signs would be at the very beginning.

That's why I say this is giving us a chance to double-check how many signs we have.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Okay.

[Kim St. Claire]

We have signs on the highway saying that the park is coming up and then we have the great big sign that says “the park is here”, so we would want to take a look at that, at the size of the signs, and different sizes of signs cost different amounts of money—

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Of course.

[Kim St. Claire]

—so we're currently working through that.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Is it possible at all for you—I guess Parks Canada is the one doing these evaluations or assessments—to provide to the committee that breakdown of the costs?

[Kim St. Claire]

I could go back and see what could be done with respect to providing more information on that.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Fabulous, and it would be something that you would give to the clerk of the committee.

[Kim St. Claire]

Okay. Thank you.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

I'll change gears a little in my questions, because cost was the biggest thing.

Secondly, I wanted to know if there were some impact assessments done on the community, based on the changes. You spoke about a lot of the positive impacts for the tourism industry, which is the largest industry in the community. What would be some of the negative impacts?

[Tom Russell]

Gord, would you care to field this?

[Gord Brown, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

Thank you for the question.

I can't really see any negative impacts. We have had significant consultations, which were done, first of all, by me. This was driven by the communities. I have been very involved in the communities there for many, many years. First, I served as the president of the Gananoque and Thousand Islands chamber of commerce. Later I was elected to the town council in Gananoque. I was very active. I was the chair of the economic development committee there.

I've been very involved in this over many years and have been well connected with the people in the industry. It was driven by those people. That's why I brought this forward as a private member's bill. The only way to change the name of this park is through legislation. One would have thought that there might be other ways to change the name of a park, but this is part of the National Parks Act, and this is why we're going through this process in Parliament and at this committee today.

In terms of negative impacts, I don't see any. You've heard from Mr. Russell, from Mr. Ross, and from Ms. St. Claire. In terms of things from the community, it's all positive. I think the number we heard was $138,000 over a 10-year period. In terms of the costs, many of those costs will be for things that will have to be redone anyway during that period of time. It's all positive. I can't think of any negatives.

I'll turn it over to the other witnesses if they can think of any negative aspects of this.

As well, there were consultations by Parks Canada. Ms. St. Claire can speak to those better than I can. But in terms of community consultations and the resolutions that came from all of the municipalities along the area of the St. Lawrence Islands National Park, including the City of Kingston, which is not in my riding, but they also did a resolution to endorse this.... So there are no negatives that I can see.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Thank you.

I know that my time is running short, but I must also say that I'm very happy to have the largest chunk of the current Rouge Park in my home riding of Scarborough—Rouge River.

Oh, Gord wants to jump in there.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Gord Brown, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

Thank you, Ms. Sitsabaiesan, for your question.

Now, you have a park in your riding that is known as the Rouge urban park—maybe you can correct me here—but it's known as the Rouge Park, because it is where the park is. If the park were called the GTA national park, it would not represent where that park is, so.....

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

I hear the argument the community is making, and it's good to know that it's actually coming from the community. That wasn't very clear earlier, and then there was no costing. We just wanted to make sure that we're being fiscally responsible, even if it is one park in the whole scheme of the entire country and everything else. We just wanted to make sure that we're doing the necessary due diligence. That's all.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mark Warawa]

Thank you very much. Your time has expired.

Next, Ms. Rempel, you have seven minutes.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Centre-North, AB]

Thank you very much.

I'd like to highlight my colleague Mr. Brown's work on this file. You'll notice that he's handed out an article dated 2009, so I think that shows the commitment he's had to his community and the impact that this—even though it's technically a small change—can have on the community. That's what my line of questioning will focus on primarily: the business case surrounding this decision.

Mr. Russell, you mentioned that as the economy in your region has changed over the last few years, tourism has become a substantive part of the economy. Could you very briefly discuss the percentage of income in the economy in your area that's based on tourism, and perhaps any tourism growth rates in recent years?

[Tom Russell]

I don't have those stats available to me. I can speak anecdotally.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Centre-North, AB]

Even anecdotally.

[Tom Russell]

I'll attempt to answer it, but I may defer to Mr. Ross or to Ms. St. Claire, or even to Gord. In Don's case, he has worked specifically in the industry. The work I've done is a little bit more as an umbrella, as an overview. We work with all sectors of the economy.

I can tell you anecdotally that over the 20 years that I've been doing this job, and from the numbers of businesses we work with, there has been a sizable shift. There was once a time when the bulk of our clients were not specifically in the tourism industry, and now we see a number of start-ups that are entirely dependent, or at least in large part dependent, on the tourism industry. So from an anecdotal point of view, we see that.

Given some time, if it's important, I can certainly supply you with the data to prove the case. There's no denying it.

We also have a number of agencies working specifically on tourism. As Gord mentioned earlier, each one of those folks is recognizing this as well.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Centre-North, AB]

Just to re-emphasize along that line, then, because of the importance of tourism in your economy, you do feel that this change in brand for the park would help to spur further growth or maintain the growth in that industry. Is that correct?