Environment Committee on Sept. 26th, 2017

[Mark Brandt]

Three of the points that I made touch on what I'll call my answer to that. First of all, since we've brought in the established standards and guidelines that are being used across the country now, I think that this has given a higher degree of confidence that we can revitalize historic places and find areas where managed change can happen to them, while protecting the character-defining elements and the historic value. What falls out of that is that it provides an economic basis by having new use. That is a very important first pillar of the answer, I think.

The second pillar of the answer revolves around environmental benefit, in that there are a lot of ways to rehabilitate historic places, so that you don't have to go in and clear-cut everything, so to speak, and put in expensive new systems. If you carefully knit in hybrid systems, you don't have to spend as much money on that. You have to know the building. You have to know ways to do it.

The third pillar has to do with community engagement. We don't tell a community what their heritage is. The community will tell us what their heritage is. If the community values the heritage place that they're looking to preserve, there are opportunities to find ways to use the historic place to serve contemporary needs, but preserve the historic value.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Okay. I'm sorry to have to cut that off, but I'm sure we'll continue that discussion through the questioning.

Mr. Stetski.

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

Thank you.

And thank you to the witnesses for being here today.

I'll start with Mr. Moran. I started school at Chesterfield Inlet in the Northwest Territories. My brother and I were the only Caucasians attending the residential school. The RCMP did contact me a number of years ago to ask whether any of my classmates could talk about abuse. It was a very dark chapter in our lives, which is why I was so proud of the Ktunaxa outside of Cranbrook when they took St. Eugene and turned it into a very positive, great resort.

It was an elder who said they had to take a very bad past and turn it into a good future by using the residential school. They did that through help from other first nations and private sector money. What do you think the government's role should be in perhaps complementing first nations and the private sector in recovering or preserving the old schools?

[Ry Moran]

That's an excellent question. I think there is a really strong opportunity for a four-way partnership on this, with individuals, businesses, and provincial and federal agencies coming together to ensure...and obviously, indigenous peoples and governments coming together to preserve these buildings.

I think it's important to understand how all those pieces are going to fit together and that we create a structure that enables success in that area. Our success so far in terms of starting to walk this journey says that there are multiple opportunities. We see that individual Canadians—through the work of Gord Downie and other Canadians like that—are passionate about supporting the preservation of this history and contributing to the roles.

On the specific issue of the missing children, we also know that the provinces bear the responsibility for the forensic or archeological work that would need to happen in order to properly gazette or uncover those sites. There are multiple calls to action for businesses to meaningfully participate in reconciliation generally, and of course, there are specific calls to action for the federal government. The national centre has specific responsibilities in this as well. So there is ample opportunity.

The overall mission for us collectively as a country is not to work in isolation, but to try to find as much synergy in the various systems and the various ways of working together as we possibly can to ensure that we collectively realize this opportunity to build a better country. That's something everybody can participate in, and that's why the TRC's calls to action were addressed not only to the federal government, but also to individuals, organizations, governments, and of course us, as a country.

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

Thank you.

Paul, during your presentation you talked about the roles of the federal and provincial governments in heritage preservation. I was mayor of Cranbrook for three years. Municipalities play a very significant role in whether heritage gets preserved or not.

In what ways could municipalities help to be part of preserving heritage at the municipal level?

[Paul Berg-Dick]

I certainly didn't mean to exclude the municipalities in that. They're a key part as well. They have a role to play, linked to provinces. It's also a question of how best from the federal perspective to lever additional resources that may take you into programs where you're willing to cost share, willing to match funds, or willing to build on the interest in a municipality, the interest in a community—in a way, to have that as the driving force for a program as opposed to just setting it up at the national level and finding a particular type of activity that would qualify.

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

Do you think it is primarily through grants, or tax incentives, or....?

[Paul Berg-Dick]

Well, again, with the tax incentives, you don't have the same flexibility, because it will be typically defined at the federal level. Provinces can also define a credit, typically at their level. They don't have the benefits of changing the tax base, because they have to follow the federal tax base in most cases. Quebec and Alberta don't, because they're not part of the corporate...but in most provinces that would be the case. They can do that.

It's the same thing with municipalities. Some of them have looked at ways to do tax rebates for particular projects, to provide an incentive by not having to pay the same level or providing grants. There is a variety of different...that resourcing could be done at the municipality level as well.

I think what would be interesting is if you could lever a dollar of the federal money and generate a dollar of provincial or municipal money for a particular activity. That can give you greater bang for your buck. That's typically done on the grant side as opposed to the tax side. For a tax incentive, typically the federal government determines what the base of the incentive would be, what the rate would be, and then the impact.

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

Basically, a partnership between all three levels of government would be ideal to preserve heritage.

[Paul Berg-Dick]

It could be, to the extent that this way you'd have the best potential I think to draw on the interests and the funds of all three levels or orders of government. Again, it's part of the pros and cons of looking at different mechanisms. Some allow you to do that. The tax incentive doesn't really allow you that kind of direct linkage into the other side.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Fillmore.

[Andy Fillmore, Liberal, Halifax, NS]

Thank you, and thanks to all the speakers for making time to be here today. It's much appreciated, and it's nice to see you again, Ry.

By great coincidence I'm subbing in on this committee today for Darren Fisher. My background is in city planning and architecture, including some preservation. I had the great fortune to lead the process that created downtown Halifax's first heritage conservation district several years ago. That process—where we used your guidelines and standards, by the way, to help us with that, so thank you—led to a conservation district that used matching-facade grants, some deep tax incentives for more substantial work, and alternate building code compliance to allow the reuse of heritage buildings in ways that don't meet the modern code. Therefore, I'm going to focus my questions and remarks on the built environment more than on landscapes or places.

There are plenty of heritage assets across the country, it seems, where this balance of carrots, grants or incentives, can be matched or balanced with the stick of conservation regulation in a way that can help to unlock private capital, and use the market forces to pay for the work that needs to be done, and keep those heritage resources alive and useful.

We also have a lot of other assets in Canada where there is very limited or even no likelihood of private participation. Some of your examples, Ry, I think are in that box. In my work as the MP in Halifax, trying to sort out things like proper funding for Georges Island, or the Sambro Island Lighthouse, I have come across the very instilled mindset in some of the line departments about needing to have a business case to even take on the asset to add it to the list of registered historic places.

What advice can you give the committee or the line departments or the government about understanding that there are both kinds in Canada, and helping to find the appropriate balance of where much higher levels of public participation are required versus more subtle financial taxes or other incentives? You see what I'm getting at. I want to help this committee to make an impression on people who are making decisions in departments that there needs to be that balance and understanding that there are some cases where there's a higher public requirement.

Maybe we could have an open discussion about that.

[Ry Moran]

I might just, in opening, say a couple of things about that. I think in regard to the school cemeteries and the missing children work, I believe that there will be individuals who see the value in doing that work and want to participate and want to lend a helping hand. I think we will be able to leverage certain opportunities through partnerships with university-based researchers or something along those lines. I think ultimately we do have to address that problem on a national basis in very close collaboration with the local communities. It is going to require some effort.

On the residential schools themselves, I think it's a twofold approach that we do need to understand. I think there's certainly the potential for a business case to be developed in some of these locations. A very large number of the TRC's calls to action relate to education and the need to have very authentic conversations about this very difficult past that we have in this country. Certainly, in the case of the Brantford school, the “mush hole”, or Long Plain First Nation in Manitoba, they're relatively close to major urban centres. It's not difficult to envision school children and other groups attending those places to have authentic dialogues, and perhaps there's some kind of model there that can be explored.

I think we, collectively as a country, do need to show some leadership in saying that these are important elements of our national history. We need to shine that light into those darker recesses of our history, and make sure that we approach this on a “need to do it” basis, based on where we're trying to get to, rather than perhaps using other frames to understand this challenge and opportunity that we have.

[Mark Brandt]

I appreciate the question, Andy. It's not really a question. As you say, we need to have some discussion. I see that there are already some mechanisms in place, which I'll discuss in a second, and which I think we need to build on. For example, Parks and other organizations will make some determinations about historic places that have national significance, that have national resonance, and Ry has talked about a few of those.

Also, each province has people working in its public sector, as you know being from Nova Scotia, who look at what places have provincial significance and resonance for the people and for the whole province.

Other very useful and excellent and meaningful heritage places are very much more community-oriented. Often, they get a lot of the effort, if you will, by individuals within a community to save them. It could be an old bridge. It could be anything. It's an opportunity locally to express something that you want to do.

Your question, the way I took it, is how do we divide it between the different levels of government, and how do we divide it between business and individuals, communities, and the public sector? I think at the end of the day it's always going to be about partnerships. Partnerships have proven to be engines of advancement. We need more people who can pull partnerships together, who can orchestrate partnerships. I think there is a growing industry within the heritage community of the realization of that. I think some of the national conferences we've had recently have focused on that. I've been asked to speak at Newfoundland's heritage conference at the end of next month. When I look at the program, a lot of what they're doing there is talking about business cases for preservation.

I don't think there's any one answer, with the possible exception that there will always be different types, levels, and aspects to historic places that need to be looked at on a case-by-case basis, and that always the strongest approach is through partnerships of the various stakeholders.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Thank you.

Mr. Godin.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Ms. Prince, gentlemen, thank you for taking part in this exercise, which I think is important. We can explore various avenues and sectors to make our examination of this file a success.

Mr. Berg-Dick, we all know that the government spends a great deal, yet it is not enough. With regard to heritage, protection measures and the needs are not decreasing; they are increasing. For as long as we evolve and history evolves, the needs will increase.

Based on your experience at the Department of Finance, can you tell me if past investments were maximized?

Was there rigorous reporting?

[Paul Berg-Dick]

In terms of looking at the effectiveness of particular programs, that's one thing we take very seriously in the Department of Finance. It's one reason we have the tax expenditure account in terms of any particular measures that fall on the tax side. It's also why, from an overall government perspective, we want to evaluate particular programs.

In that context, one of the programs that had been put in place—and we have had discussions over the years in terms of whether particular programs should be done through the grant programs or tax incentive programs, and in the end there was a pilot program, the commercial heritage properties incentive fund—which was in place for a number of years, provided grants for particular activities. That was found to be quite successful in terms of its impact. There's a report you can see on the National Trust site, which shows that in terms of the money that was set out, it was able to lever up about another eight times' worth of investment. In the sense of putting money in, it's a challenge to evaluate that, but it's important to evaluate it.

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

Correct me if I am wrong, but in listening to your presentation, it seemed that you are questioning the fact that the tax benefits are limited to businesses and not available to NPOs?

Am I correct in saying that you are fearful of this?

[Paul Berg-Dick]

What are NPOs?

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

Non-profit organizations.

Is that what you were saying?

[Paul Berg-Dick]

Yes.

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

For my part, if funds can be raised to enable a community to preserve its heritage, I have no objection to those funds coming from the community, non-profits or businesses.

Why would an entrepreneur want to fund and support those conservation projects if no incentives are offered?

[Paul Berg-Dick]

I think there's a growing appreciation for the value of certain buildings that have historic value and that there's a set of occupants who want to use buildings in that way. I think part of it will be that business people will have to look at a particular case and see whether in fact a business case can be made. I think the challenge in some cases is that they face additional costs. The question is whether, on balance, they'll be able to generate additional rents. There are some situations where that can be used as a way to differentiate your project from others. I think there's a number of different groups that have an appreciation, or potential occupants who have an appreciation, for working in a historic building. You see that in different places. I know personally, from Waterloo, that has been a hub for new ventures, but they're in an older building. I think the challenge is that people want the older building, but they also want class A infrastructure within it; they want to have a good situation to work in.

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

My next question is for Mr. Moran.

There was a lot of emotion in what you said earlier. As I said at the outset, there are many needs relating to heritage preservation. You talked about infrastructure, residential schools and schools from the past of indigenous persons, as well as cemeteries. What would your initial preference be?

I will give my opinion first and then listen to yours. I think the first thing should be preserving the memory of the young people in the cemeteries, which means protecting those sites. Then, if the funds are available, we could address infrastructure.

I would like to hear your opinion.

[Ry Moran]

That's a good question.

I don't really know if there is a difference between the two. Consider for example children who have disappeared.

That's going to take quite a long time, in order to properly honour that project. That's not a one-year project. It's going to require a lot of community engagement and it's going to require a lot of ceremony. We have to think of a long-term strategy for that. Truthfully, I think it's about 10 years. That would be a safe assumption for now.

In terms of the buildings, though, I think there are perhaps some more immediate steps that can be taken through using mechanisms like Parks Canada, through using mechanisms that already exist. We have to realize that, like most heritage buildings, if we lose certain foundational elements of that building, if we lose the roof, if we lose the foundation, we lose the building itself. I think we have to move quite quickly in coming up with a preservation strategy for these essential components, so it is both.