Finance Committee on Sept. 19th, 2006

[Pierre Paquette, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Ms. Dickson, your recommendation 3 deals a little with the same concern:

It is recommended that the Government of Canada put tools and instruments in place that encourage, support and develop inter and multi departmental program partnerships and funding frameworks ???

First, could you be a little more specific when you talk about interdepartmental partnerships? What do you mean by that? What is the role played by the provinces in that recommendation 3 in your report?

[Jennifer Dickson]

Thank you, and through you, Mr. Chairman, what we're finding--and this isn't about Pauktuutit but is about many NGOs--there are pockets of activities and policy development in many departments that would function much better if they worked together.

I can give you one example in our work, and that is, we do a lot of work on many facets, many kinds, of abuse. We spend probably 40% of our core activity developing, proposing, negotiating, and reporting on tiny pieces of money from across various departments. Status of Women Canada has a little bit of money to help on abuse. INAC has a little bit more, and even CMHC, Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation, has some. There are about seven or eight different departments that have little bits of mandate to work on abuse matters. For a tiny, outside NGO we have to not only know all about that, which takes a huge amount of work to even stay up on it, as you can imagine.... As a committee, your staying on top of it must be a major accomplishment, and we're not even privy to the communications you have. Then there's knowing about requests for proposals and timing and various requirements in terms of proposal drafting and the contents that are required and the negotiations. Let's say you're fortunate enough to receive $100,000 to work on one aspect of your national strategy on abuse prevention. Then you have to implement that work and report back to that department in their language--and I'm not talking about English and French here; I'm talking about very strict, sometimes arcane, bureaucratic language. That's all for one piece of one file for us. We have 32 files across, probably at the moment, about 11 different departments, and that is aside from our private sector funders. It is onerous, to say the very least, to pull that off.

Even if we're successful, I don't think it serves very well the Canadian demographic we're serving to do that much work at that level. If we can get the departments themselves to break across some of their silos and work together and even maybe, hey, God forbid, pool those resources and make it easier for a small, outside organization, especially an organization whose entire mandate is to implement the government policy on these matters.... We should be partnering and we should be working together.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Paquette, your time has elapsed. We'll continue with Mr. Dykstra. You have six minutes, sir.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Thank you.

I have about three questions for three different groups. I'm hoping we can scoot through this fairly quickly.

One of the questions I had was for Mr. Bradley with respect to his recommendation that the Government of Canada should restore the 80% meal deductibility rate.

Have you done a little bit of research on what that might potentially cost from a federal perspective? Does that recommendation translate further through other industries, or is it just related specifically to yours?

[David Bradley]

The Government of Canada, over the last 10 to 12 years, has taken the position that it would have to be a broad-based measure. The United States has taken a different approach. They've looked at different segments of the working population and decided where it makes sense to have a higher deductibility and where it doesn't.

It's not mentioned in our brief, but we've always made the offer that we're quite prepared to work with government to set a limit. We're not talking about lunches at the Rideau Club and stuff like that for truck drivers. We're talking about a sandwich and a pop. In terms of the cost, we can contain those, whether it is $25 or $45 a day.

It's an odd situation in which federal civil servants get about $75 a day in a tax-free allowance, yet working Canadians don't, particularly working Canadians who have to operate all over North America.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Thank you.

One of the other questions I had was related to tourism. Mr. Williams, in terms of the WHTI, how long has this been an issue in this country, and how long have we known the direction the United States was going to take in that respect?

[Randy Williams]

WHTI became law in December of 2004. It became known in April of 2005, when they started releasing the rollout of the law. A final rulemaking has come out. We've submitted to the first rulemaking--there was an opportunity to submit input--and we've submitted now to the final rulemaking.

It will take effect on January 8 of 2007 for air and sea and on January 1 of 2008 for land.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

From your perspective, should we continue to try to win the battle in terms of getting them to change their minds, or do you think we're better off focusing on partnering with them and finding a way to make it work?

[Randy Williams]

I think we're better off trying to mitigate the damage. There will be damage. The border, as of next year, will become more expensive and more bureaucratic and more difficult for travellers. As people responsible for the public good, you must realize our industry is going to be damaged by that, and we should try to mitigate the damage.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Thank you.

I'll be very quick. I know I have only a couple of minutes left, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Morrison, one of the recommendations I read with great interest was the one that our heritage minister, Bev Oda, is moving forward on. It is in terms of undertaking to establish an independent task force to review the mandate, role, and services of the CBC. The task force would be charged with ensuring the removal of political patronage from CBC's board and presidential selection process, in keeping with international standards for public broadcasting.

Could you expand on that a little bit? Are there any thoughts on how we could improve over the last 13, 14, or 20 years?

[Ian Morrison]

Yes, sir.

First, on the recommendation of Minister Oda, there's an end-of-quotation mark before you get to the patronage part. The comment about patronage is one we brought to the table. In the best practice of western democracy public broadcasting, it is not effectively the prime minister, the cabinet, or an order in council that appoints the senior leadership of the public broadcaster; in common with private sector corporation practice, a board of directors hires and fires the chief executive officer. That process should be brought to bear in Canada. That is our opinion; it was also the unanimous opinion, if I recall, of the Lincoln committee in 2003.

Then, of course, arises the question of how the board of directors gets there. There have been recommendations in public policy--again, the Lincoln report--that nominations for the board of directors of something as important as the Canada Council or the CBC should come from a variety of sectors and represent a variety of perspectives and experiences. The best and the brightest people should be running billion-dollar corporations. That is not a fiscal measure, but it would increase public confidence--and probably governmental confidence--in the management of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

So that type of accountability hasn't happened in the past, but it should certainly happen in the near future.

[Ian Morrison]

Yes, we would be very supportive of an initiative of that type.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

Thank you, Mr. Dykstra.

We'll continue with Madam Wasylycia-Leis, please.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

Just following up on my colleague's comments on CBC, are you not a little worried at all, Mr. Morrison, about Bev Oda's task force, which may in fact really be an attempt to further dismantle CBC and put another knife in the back of our public broadcaster? Maybe I'm overreacting to some of the previous comments by the Conservatives, but I certainly worry about the future of a public broadcaster. Also, perhaps you could indicate why you think a public broadcaster is important in terms of building a competitive nation.

[Ian Morrison]

Sure.

The Friends of Canadian Broadcasting is supportive to the intent of Minister Oda's plan. That was a motion she moved in the last days of the last Parliament at the heritage committee, and it passed that committee with the support of the Bloc; the Conservatives and the Bloc voted for it. My information is that her proposal to do that has been blocked by the Prime Minister's Office, which is a cause of concern to us. We don't think, at the moment, that that proposal is going forward. I would love to be wrong about that.

With respect to the second part of your question, the public broadcasting role in Canada, with respect to competitiveness, is partly to tell Canada's story to the world. It's also to gather stories from a variety of locations in Canada. I referred in my remarks to the evidence of the Toronto broadcasting corporation--what it would look like if in fact the kind of broadcaster that happened during the lockout of last year were to become the case. You represent Manitobans in this Parliament, and Manitoba's share of CBC employment and resources has gone down a great deal in the recent past. There's a question of equity. There's also a question of Canadians, particularly young Canadians, having access to stories, factual and fiction, about their own culture, as opposed to stories from Los Angeles or Miami.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

Thank you.

For the school board, I don't disagree with your recommendation around a full rebate for the GST, but I think it's estimated to cost about $160 million a year. You may need to correct me on the numbers.

[Lance Bean]

I think, by our estimates, it's in excess of $1 billion a year.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

A billion? So I'm way off.

My question still holds. How do we make the argument to government then to take that hit of a billion dollars? What's the cost-benefit analysis so that we can see how we'll reap so much more if we in fact give school boards that much more flexibility?

[Lance Bean]

Schools are a publicly funded entity. Right now what we're doing, and also the government, is paying transfer payments to each of the provinces to make sure that these types of services happen, but then the money keeps going around and around.

One thing we really have noticed in the last number of years is that school budgets are becoming tighter and tighter and expectations of schools are increasing. I think some of the things we talked about here, such as early childhood identification, English as a second language, are all cost increases that come to boards of education.

We need to make sure that the funding is available. Education is probably the only proactive endeavour that we do of almost any, especially dealing with children. Any money invested in education pays off. It takes an awful lot less money to educate a child than it does to run him through a penal system. We found that early identification of students saves tons of money just in the education. It's not a cost; it's an investment. Education is an investment and we're taxing probably the most important resource that we have in our country. We have to make sure that we're providing the best quality education for our students. This is becoming an impediment to the success of our students.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

If I have time for another question, it's to Mr. Bean.

You've touched on a very important issue as well: enhancing early childhood learning. But you've really skirted the debate we're having daily in Parliament around investing in programs and spaces versus giving tax benefits or allowances or credits to individuals. Do you have a position as a school board on the best way to ensure adequate childhood learning capacity in this country?

[Lance Bean]

From our association's perspective, each of the provinces has a different approach to it. But we all agree that the research shows that investment in children at an early age helps in their success, not only through school but beyond, especially with special needs students and students at risk. It's not a cost; it's an investment.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

Thank you, Ms. Wasylycia-Leis.

We'll continue with the second round of questions.

Mr. McKay, we will endeavour to make it four minutes.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Thank you. I appreciate that.

I'll direct my questions, therefore, to the Canadian Trucking Alliance, and to appendix B, where you say that the successful NRCan program was suspended in March 2006 after the purchase of 13,000-plus units of APUs. Apparently the government invested $6 million and the trucking industry invested $31 million.

Basically, it's the cancellation of a program that seemed to be working. Do you have any insight into why this is, or is this just a sort of anti-environment agenda on the part of the government?