Environment Committee on Sept. 21st, 2017

[William Amos, Liberal, Pontiac, QC]

I'd like to reiterate my colleagues' thanks to all of you for your hard work on issues that are chronically underfunded. Having worked on the environmental side of affairs, I can commiserate with you, but there's hope for the future. It's great that there's a committee looking at this and great that we have such strong memos from you.

I want to follow the line of inquiry of my colleague Mr. Bossio around financing and the best approach to financing. My own sense is that we're going to reach agreement that there should be legislation. Where I'm not sure there's going to be agreement is on recommendations around the best path forward for the use of scarce funds.

I would like to hear a response from those of you who are interested. Should the rural side be weighed more heavily in the broader context of financing heritage building protection? I also want to situate this in a broader context. Do you think there would be a stronger justification for financing of heritage protection if it's framed in the context of tourism promotion, particularly rural tourism promotion? Do you think there would be stronger arguments if it were framed in terms of a main street revival program?

Is it possible that the entire argument around the financing of heritage in a competitive government funding world has been that it hasn't been focused on the right thing, not just that it's just been competing against superior priorities? I'd love to hear your comments on that.

[Gordon Bennett]

Once more unto the breach.... In terms of priorities—I understand that this question also came up on Tuesday—I'd like to address specifically the notion of competing priorities and competing interests. You heard on Tuesday about the need for dramatically enhanced funding for cost-sharing in order to effectively conserve, and we're just talking about the national historic site component, which is probably about 700 places outside of federal ownership and is already oversubscribed.

To me, the context always depends on where you're sitting. If I'm looking at the 2016 federal budget and I see $65 million approved in that budget for a bicycle and hiking trail in Jasper National Park, and I think of the needs of.... If the conservation is just not taking place on things that people highly value across this country, then I say to myself that I think it really depends on where you are. I think sometimes we need to get down and look at where the money is actually being spent. When you do that, I think, it's not so much culture versus nature, and it's not so much tourism versus this or that. It's something else.

Now, on framing things so that people appreciate why this investment has benefits other than just straightforward conservation, I think that makes eminently good sense. For example, in the United States, there is a 20% tax credit for approved work that takes place on any national historic landmark. In fact, I think any building on the register is eligible to apply for that funding. They built in something that said to forget heritage for the moment; any building built before 1936 in the United States that is converted into affordable housing will automatically get a 10% tax credit.

That tax credit program in the United States is credited by a number of people with being instrumental in the rehabilitation of American cities. Many of you are much younger than I am, but I remember reading in the 1980s about all these American cities that were basket cases and would never recover. New York City and Provincetown and all of these places were dead, yet it was this rehabilitation tax credit program that started interesting entrepreneurs. The high-tech industry started moving into old buildings. There was this creation of that sort of thing. In fact, when Christina and I were working, Deloitte and Touche in the United States had a section of their big consulting firm that was designed to put places on the register so they'd be eligible for tax credits, because of the very positive impacts this rehabilitation was having on those communities.

I agree with you that framing is important, but I would like us always to think in these terms: when we're talking about the competing interests, it really depends on how you are actually spending that money.

[William Amos, Liberal, Pontiac, QC]

Thank you.

[Christophe Rivet]

I have just a quick point, realizing how little time there is.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Really quickly, please.

[Christophe Rivet]

Simply because we were talking about the model of individual support, which is really important, I want to make an echo of the environmental movement, where what we are doing is encouraging civil society to be invested through initiatives and programs that are funded by the federal government. There is absolutely something to consider here, because it is applied elsewhere in the world very successfully, and the environmental movement is very competent in achieving things for the community. For heritage, we should consider that option as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Before I move to Mr. Fast, following up on that, and as you've shared already, if you have any concrete examples on how we can leverage money and other opportunities to meet that question, we're looking for those. Thank you.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

I'm going to drill down into that a bit later on, but first, when I take your testimony collectively and then the testimony we heard two days ago, there are some common themes emerging. One is that we need legislation.

Mr. Bennett, you really drilled down into that and gave us a comprehensive look at what you think is required.

Mr. Rivet, you also talked about policy tools. Fortunately, we have a written copy of your submission, but it doesn't really drill down to what those tools might entail. Could you do that for us? That's helpful for us as we craft a report going forward.

[Christophe Rivet]

Perhaps I'll give you a pointer as to a big picture of where one could start.

There is a slate of tools that can apply specifically to Parks Canada, and then there is a slate of tools to consider for the entire federal government. I should disclose that I used to be an Environment Canada employee, and that is where I learned a lot about how the environment is part of the consideration of action by all federal departments.

There is something to consider there, where, for example, the federal sustainable development strategy, which aims to guide each department on how to achieve Canada's commitment on sustainable development, is reporting on its contributions. There are some significant challenges in aligning the objectives of that strategy with the international commitments, one of them being the fact that there is no mechanism to report on how we achieve sustainable development while considering cultural heritage. There's already an opportunity there to place a marker that cultural heritage is part of Canada's goals in achieving sustainable development, and that as a government we will look for those actions and performances that will help us achieve that goal.

As I mentioned in my introduction, there are various departments that are easily touched upon when one looks at heritage matters. It's a matter of their mandate not being called upon for cultural heritage, but they're already, in a way, addressing heritage issues. When we talk about reconciliation with indigenous peoples, we're obviously talking about certain aspects of heritage. When we talk about investing in infrastructure in urban centres, we will inevitably intersect with the cultures and the cultural expression of the communities in those urban centres.

I'm simply pointing out that even just starting with the federal sustainable development strategy, we can look at how that applies to other departments.

The last idea that comes to mind is that there will soon be an announcement on funding for eco.... I'm sorry. I forget the specific expression, but it's essentially encouraging owners to invest in greening buildings and eco-retrofitting. This is clearly an opportunity where we can talk about how the federal government views the importance of cultural heritage, not just because it has value, but because of its ability to perform to achieve our goals towards sustainable development and the impacts of climate change.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Does anybody else want to comment?

If not, I want to talk about the financial challenges that face any government. Mr. Amos touched on that. He talked about competing priorities. We talked about that in the last meeting as well.

The funding has been up and down over the last few years. You've had a look at what the funding levels are. Have you come to any conclusion about what kinds of funding levels are required for us to not only maintain our existing inventory of cultural heritage buildings, but to actually acquire new ones and incent the private sector to do their part?

Mr. Rivet.

[Christophe Rivet]

I don't have a definite number, but I want to point out two things that I think are important.

First off, it's clear that Parks Canada does not have the resources, the capacity, to fully invest in the conservation of the sites. When we look at their reports to Parliament indicating that a large proportion of them are in fair or poor condition, there's an issue that we need to pay attention to there.

The point I really wanted to make is the idea of leveraging. I don't believe we have fully explored that idea. This is where I go back to the environmental approach to funding, where we seek partners in civil society to take on the leadership for what is best for the communities, and we do that by supporting their individual initiatives that fit within the federal government's goals of x, y, and z. It's that pattern of thinking that I think is also extremely important to consider for addressing this.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Bennett.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

You have 30 seconds.

[Gordon Bennett]

While funding for Parks Canada has increased significantly since 2013, expenditures on national historic sites and all cultural heritage programs within Parks Canada are down by about 15%, I believe. There's a structural problem here. It's not just a money problem. It's how the money gets distributed. It's where the money goes. That's something this committee could probably look at.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Ergo, your comments about the Jasper bicycle trail....

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

I don't think he said anything, did he? I don't remember hearing that. Did he say it?

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Somebody talked about the Jasper bicycle trail.

Did I mishear?

[A voice]

No.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

No, they heard it. I missed it, but I thought that I would have twigged on it if it had been said.

I'm going to have to cut off that excellent line of questioning. We'll see if we can pick it up further along.

Mr. Aldag.

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

For one of the pieces that's come to mind and that we've had a bit of a discussion on, this is more of a heads-up. I'm not going to spend a lot of time on it now. In the spring, we tabled legislation on federal sustainability, the FSDA. We were looking at sustainability, and for this whole heritage piece, I would say, we didn't consider it when we did our study. I'm thinking that when the legislation comes back, it may be something that we could dedicate a session to in terms of looking at how heritage could fit into that act. I'm kind of putting it on the record that we should consider that as a committee and perhaps have some of these witnesses come back and speak to us—and perhaps others—because there could be an amendment that could strengthen that legislation. I'll leave that for some thinking for us at this time.

Mr. Sopuck, in his comments, took me back to a point in time when I was stationed at Riding Mountain National Park in the early 1990s. At that point, a number of federal heritage buildings and national historic sites were under threat. I think of the east gate there, which is an architectural gem. There was a comparable one for the south gate that had been demolished without any records. There were questions about whether we should just get rid of east gate. Also, the visitors centre was going to be demolished and replaced with something new. These are real architectural gems and set the whole character of the town of Wasagaming.

The issue we have within national parks, based on my three decades plus in the organization, is that there are always competing interests for where to spend money. I know that within national parks the idea of ecological integrity is always the driver, and then there are contemporary assets such as highways and water treatment systems. Heritage is often the neglected cousin.

Even though there's money, and your comment was that Riding Mountain park is not in bad shape, there were points in time—

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

Oh yes.

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

—where it could have ended up very differently. People like Christina and Gordon were very pivotal in making sure there were policies in place for Parks Canada.

I also go outside of Parks Canada, which is actually mandated to spend money on heritage, so the historic sites and federal heritage buildings within Parks Canada are fortunate. On this idea of legislation being required for the expenditure of public funds, a discussion I've had many times with the Department of National Defence and other departments is that in their core mandate they're not financed by Treasury Board to spend money on heritage buildings. National Defence was one department that was often knocking down federal heritage buildings. Their argument was simply that they didn't have the money, that they were here to blow things up—

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

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

—and defend the country, not to protect old structures.

With that as a lengthy preamble, I'm trying to wrap my mind around the crafting of this if we were to go forward with legislation on federal historic sites and the work that Gordon and Christina did. I tried to find the previous legislation, but it's sealed, so we can't get it. We need to reconstruct whatever it is. It had gone to cabinet, so I've been unable to.... I was looking at doing something along these lines with my private member's bill.

We need to really reconstruct what was there. I'm wondering if we were to do a piece getting the federal House in order and we had legislation for national historic sites.... Was what was contemplated to look at not just the Parks Canada ones and giving true protection, but to look at the full suite? Would we have been able to give that federal expenditure for the protection of federally owned national historic sites...? Could you help shed some light on how that was at least envisioned back in the early 2000s?

[Gordon Bennett]

In the interdepartmental meetings we had, there was a lot of discussion about the extra costs associated with heritage conservation. We did reach I think what was a fairly general consensus on the 20% figure. The heritage people said they thought that was a little high, so we gave reasons why we thought it was high. The custodians said that they didn't think it was high enough, that if there were a big contingency.... They had seen how the U.S. system works.

The 20% figure was sort of accepted that it would be.... There would be an additional cost to the treasury for those other 65 or 63—whatever the number is—national historic sites in other government departments, just as the government funded obligations when the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act was introduced, for example, and originally under the guideline order custodians had to assume obligations that they had not previously had to assume. These are important obligations. It's important that they meet them—