Environment Committee on Sept. 21st, 2017

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Should there be a small program, then, by the federal government to assist these local preservation efforts, a matching funds kind of program? Many of these are very low in cost. For some of my little volunteer groups who are heroically working on these areas, $5,000 would mean the world. Would a program like that by the federal government be useful?

[Prof. Christina Cameron]

That was where the tax credit program was targeted—

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Right.

[Prof. Christina Cameron]

—and that was really in relation to any registered property, so that would be the area to explore.

I know we're out of time.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Mr. Amos.

[William Amos, Liberal, Pontiac, QC]

I'd like to return quickly to the financing question and simply invite our learned witnesses, if they have further reflections on the financing aspect, to please send in those reflections in writing. That would be fabulous.

I want to put you in a particular universe and then get your reflections. Let's say $20 million was accorded to Parks Canada to encourage heritage conservation across the country, keeping in mind that there is a leadership role for Parks Canada to demonstrate just what great heritage conservation can be done and how it can be shown off to the public, but also recognizing the long-term and ongoing costs of maintaining, etc.

If you have $20 million a year and you're going to accord a part of it to federally owned heritage structures, what portion is for that and what portion is for encouraging heritage across the country for what is not necessarily federally owned? My own bias is that it's likely that just incentivizing heritage outside of federal ownership is where we want to go, so I'd love to hear Mr. Rivet and Mr. Bennett in particular on that, please.

[Christophe Rivet]

I want to bring the conversation back to the experience I had in the environmental movement, where it's clear that the federal government has invested way more than $20 million in creating initiatives that allow communities to do work irrespective of where that work takes place. I think that's where there is much to consider. If we are to intervene in cultural heritage, we are intervening in landscapes and places as diverse, as broad, and as important as we are doing for our land, our water, and our air.

Looking at the models that we are applying there, where we're talking about leveraging and multi-jurisdictional investments, and about economic development agencies being involved at all levels of government, that is something where already the federal government has a track record in delivering, which Canadians are familiar with and would not come as a surprise if it were considered as an option. I'm not specifically answering the $20 million and how much, the theoretical; I'm simply reiterating that in terms of proportion and impact we have an experience elsewhere already.

[Gordon Bennett]

I think the $20-million ask on cost-sharing should go to the non-federally owned sites to help them out. I think that within the Parks Canada context the needs should be met by looking at some internal reallocation.

[Andrew Waldron]

After speaking with owners of national historic sites in rural regions, I also think the cost-sharing program needs to be reformed. I've spoken to people in Labrador and in northern British Columbia, and they do struggle because there isn't an equal playing field. This needs to be investigated in terms of how to balance out those funds. In the end, the rich sites with the money to do the studies get the money. The poor ma-and-pa sites in Saskatchewan don't get the money. There needs to be a rethinking of how that program works.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

I know there's an interest in continuing with this questioning. We have small details to take care of. If you are willing, we will stop the questioning at this moment and I'll finish what I have to do, and then we'll run the time out. If there's any objection, let me know now; otherwise that's what we're going to do.

Very quickly, we did get confirmation that the commissioner is going to do the reports on October 3, so our meeting will have to be shifted. We do have witnesses who can come only on that date. They're willing to come in the afternoon. We have a spot for 3:30 to 5:30, right after QP, a room here in the Wellington Building.

[John Aldag, Liberal, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

What's the date?

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

It's going to be October 3 in this room. I'm just letting you know that we're shifting the meeting to the afternoon because there are witnesses who cannot come except on that day, and we want to hear from them.

Is there any objection?

[Joël Godin, Conservative, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Madam Chair, unfortunately I can't attend the meeting.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

You can't?

[Joël Godin, Conservative, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

I can't.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

We can still continue with the meeting. If you wouldn't mind sending a representative, that would be great, because we really do have that one day for that witness, so we'd like to try to do that.

Thank you for sharing that. We'll make sure you get all the notes, okay?

[Joël Godin, Conservative, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Thanks. I will try to find a replacement for me.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Thank you. I appreciate that.

Otherwise, we're going to shift that. We'll send out a notice and make sure you have that.

The other thing I realized when I was going to send out the pictures on Tuesday was that I don't know everybody's backup team anymore, whether it's an A1, an A2, a C1, or whatever it is that you're using as your support team at the table here. Can you send me an email, please, and just let me know what your...?

You'll have them?

[The Clerk of the Committee, Mr. Thomas Bigelow]

I'll take those.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

The clerk will take those so we know whom to send the information to, in addition to you.

That was all I had to get done today, so if we're good to go, we'll go back and do another couple of minutes each, and that will end the day.

Why don't we just start off with Wayne again.

[Wayne Stetski, NDP, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

I put everything away.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Okay. I know the Conservatives are ready.

Go right ahead, Joël.

[Joël Godin, Conservative, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Ms. Cameron, I want to know what you think about the establishment of criteria and about the distribution of the federal government's investment in protecting sites, places and buildings. Would it be possible to have a geographic distribution across the country?

Obviously, urban centres are major centres with a great deal of infrastructure and many sites. However, our regions also have a history. The urban centres developed as a result of the regions.

Would it be possible to consider a distribution of investments among the provinces, a distribution that takes into account the rural regions in comparison with the urban centres? Have you already considered this to protect Canada as a whole and to avoid favouring one region or province over another? I think all Canadian provinces and territories have a history.

[Christina Cameron]

These distinctions currently don't exist. However, depending on the programs accepted by a particular government, a program can always be created a certain way to compensate for some shortcomings or to enter different data. For example, in terms of rural buildings and major cities, certain distinctions can always be made between the cities and rural municipalities, as is the case in Quebec. I think it depends on how the programs are created. We've never explored this, but I think anything's possible.