Environment Committee on Oct. 17th, 2017

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Bang on the money there. Well done.

Mr. Cannings.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Thank you for bringing this bill forward, Mr. Van Loan. I support the bill, the spirit of it especially. Like every Canadian, I really enjoy our heritage. I think it's very important.

Because I wasn't here for the witnesses, I haven't heard all the stories and the testimony around this bill. I imagine a lot of the discussion has been around balancing the benefits to the public good with the cost to the public purse in providing funds, especially providing funds in this case for perhaps wealthier Canadians rather than the middle class.

You mentioned the estimates of benefits to the public purse. Could you perhaps comment to some extent on how confident you are on that?

I want to bring up the example of a few blocks down the street from here where there's a building called Somerset House. Since the early 2000s, the owner has neglected the building, and it partially collapsed in 2007. Now the owner estimates it will cost $2 million to repair the building. Under your bill, the owner would be eligible for a 20% tax credit for repairing the building. That's $400,000.

Do you think it's right that taxpayers should be on the hook for that amount of money, and should we perhaps have a cap that owners could claim for each year?

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

Well, Somerset House is a complex example, because this is a classic example of demolition by neglect. The reason it now costs $2 million is that the owner wanted to demolish it and allowed nature to advance that process. The city pushed back hard, to their credit, in trying to keep that building standing, or as much of it as they could. There's a bit of a standoff taking place there.

I think if you had an incentive program like this in place, you wouldn't have had the blighted corner for as many years as we've had it already. There wouldn't have been a $2-million restoration cost. The restoration cost would have been a little bit lower. That kind of tactic and that kind of approach would start disappearing. To that extent, I think it tells you why you avoid those kinds of things. It's not nice when you go down Bank Street and see what was an obviously beautiful building now fenced off. People stay away. It becomes a no-go corner. It becomes a blighted area, frankly. That's what's happened in the United States. With all these blighted areas that developed for other reasons in downtown areas—deindustrialization, changes in economic use, social changes—the American version of the program has been able to revitalize those areas. That's worthwhile, and to everybody's benefit.

Should there be a means test? I've heard this from some in the NDP. They're concerned about helping wealthy landowners who own a house. Should it be means tested? My view is that you shouldn't try to mix different objectives. There are very good reasons why you want to help out people with modest means. This program should not be a vehicle for doing that. There's no public policy justification, if you're seeking to help someone with modest means, for you to say, “Gee, if you have an old house, we're going to help you out, but if you have a 1962 subdivision home, sorry, you're going to have to suffer.” I just don't see that. You shouldn't mix those two objectives. If you want to help people who are facing economic challenges, develop programs that do that specifically. But if you want to preserve heritage, develop a program that specifically focuses on preserving heritage. I think if you start trying to mix the objectives, you achieve none of them, and you twist the program out of recognition. That's when you really start getting unintended results that are not worthwhile.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Right. I'm not suggesting a means test. I'm just thinking that perhaps, if there was an annual cap, you would encourage the ongoing maintenance of these sites rather than letting them fall into disrepair. As you say, this is perhaps not a place for a means test, because the people with these buildings are not of modest means, but—

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

Some are, though. In my community there are buildings of heritage value owned by families who've been there for eight generations and who don't have the means to fix them up. The buildings are falling apart. They might not be on the national register, but I'm sure there are some across the country that fall into that category.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Right. At any rate, could you comment on whether having a cap would encourage people to keep—

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

This bill has a cap. It's a 20% cap.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

I'm wondering about a dollar cap as well.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

If you have a dollar cap, all of a sudden anything that's a large-scale project isn't going to be eligible. All of a sudden your ability to do a Distillery District, for example, disappears. The Distillery District, I gather, did benefit from some of the grants under the pilot project that was done.

Twenty per cent is I think the effective cap that you're talking about. With 20% you're saying, “Yes, we're going to help you out, but you're carrying most of the costs. You're carrying 80% of the costs.”

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Mr. Gerretsen.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Van Loan, thanks for coming to talk to us today.

I want to ask you a question about why Canada is not good at preserving its historic sites in comparison with our neighbour, the United States. As you mentioned earlier, I was the mayor of Kingston. Kingston was Sir John A. Macdonald's hometown, at least while he was a member of Parliament. In Kingston we have his former law office, which he had before he was a member. There's a tiny, really weathered bronze plaque on the building that says it's the “site of”, etc., and that's it. Sir John A. and Isabella's home on Brock Street is currently for sale. There's a RE/MAX sign in front of it.

Could you imagine that happening in the United States with George Washington?

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

No, I could not. You're making a point there. In Kingston I'm particularly partial to the challenges of the Royal Tavern, which was of course Sir John A.'s campaign headquarters—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

—and owned by a family. There's another whole story behind that one. Even in that case, I think there's virtually no recognition of what the building was and how it functioned, though it's still a tavern, as it was in those days.

I don't know what the answer is. The fact that they've had a tax credit program for some time is part of the answer, but it's not the whole answer. I think Canadians' modest approach to history—we don't like to lionize our heroes, we have a bit of tall poppy syndrome, and we refuse to believe our history is interesting. Canadian history is boring is the thing every school kid tells you, not like American history. It's actually much more interesting than American history. It's just that we don't talk about it in cartoon-style heroic terms. Cultural differences, undoubtedly, in the approach to patriotism—we're much more modest—have made a difference.

I sense there's a change coming and that there has been a change coming.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

That's what I was getting at. Do you think this bill would help that change, or do you think we're almost a bit of a lost cause because we don't revere our former politicians or, for that matter, our former historical figures in that way?

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

Well, the Gerretsen name will no doubt figure largely in Kingston's history for years to come—

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Thank you. That's extremely flattering—

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

—all because of John.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

All because of a more senior Gerretsen.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

If we look at the public responses here to the 150th anniversary of Confederation—not the institutional responses, but the public response—I think we see among Canadians a desire and hunger to reconnect with their history, to reconnect with their country. That's what they have been doing.

We even saw it in a lot of the commercial advertising as people tried to ride that kind of story. Whether it was in a Sobeys commercial or some others, you saw many messages that actually talked about this kind of history.

I think, then, there's a hunger and desire to do this in Canada. Our centennial was a little bit about this, but it was just as much about Canada's being a dynamic place of the future. This year with Canada 150, I think Canadians had a sense that we're beginning to learn a little more about our history, remember more about it, and say “I want to know more.” A bit of that awakening is happening. All of us have a role to play in advancing it.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Circling back to the question you were answering for Mr. Aldag, he had asked you why in the 10 years the Conservative government was in power nothing had really happened. Your response was that the Department of Finance was always more or less saying no, and then you encouraged the public will to exercise its authority.

Why didn't the public will exercise its authority over that 10 years?

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

I think it did in many cases, just not on this file. My message to you is that had I been in a position to make this happen, I would have been delighted to. I wasn't in a position to do it. That's one of the reasons I've returned to it now. The point is that it's still alive. The infrastructure is still there. Everything has been built to allow it to happen. To make the difference takes only a fairly small push over the finish line with this bill, and I would hope that other stuff will follow afterwards, because there are other places in which the federal role in encouraging heritage has an abundant potential.

I view this bill as a good beginning. Right now we're limited to using the national register of historic sites. In the drafting I created an element in this bill to allow the minister the ability to extend that usage by regulation to any properties that are designated as heritage properties in a province or territory under their laws, so that, should there be a desire to grow the program, future governments would have the ability to grow the program that way.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Why do you think a tax rebate or a tax incentive like this is better than a grant, a pool of money every year that you apply to in order to get money for your project?