Thank you.
Mr. Chair, members of the committee, thank you for this opportunity to appear. The Heritage Canada Foundation is an independent charitable organization with a public mandate created to promote the rehabilitation and sustainable use of historic buildings. I'm sure you would all agree that historic places fundamentally define the character of our country. If you think about places in your own ridings, the streets and shops in Quebec City, grain elevators on the prairies, early office buildings in Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg's exchange district, rural and agricultural buildings across the country, they really are public art. They create our identity. They're the icons that we use to sell ourselves to cultural tourists. They are the containers for our businesses, our leisure activities, and our lives, yet every day historic buildings are demolished all across this country and bulldozed into landfill sites.
Why is this happening despite all of our talk about sustainable development and reducing, reusing, and recycling? It's because there are lots of sticks out there that control how we deal with our buildings--the National Building Code, property standards, bylaws--but there are really very few fiscal incentives to encourage or incite use of these buildings.
Among G8 countries, Canada alone lacks a system of funding, policies, and programs to preserve its historic infrastructure. By contrast, in the United States developers are actively seeking out heritage buildings to invest in them, and there are architecture firms, engineering firms, and construction companies that exist solely to deal with historic buildings. There are heritage training programs in every state. It's a booming industry, and that booming industry exists because thirty years ago the U.S. established a 20% tax credit for rehabilitation. The entire country has benefited from that program.
The U.S. tax credit program is internationally recognized for its success in preserving buildings, stimulating private investment--to the tune of $25 billion over the last 25 years--and revitalizing communities.
In Canada, by contrast, current federal tax policy does not encourage investment and rehabilitation, even though it provides significant incentives in many other industries, and I'm sure you're aware of those. The provinces and the municipalities are doing their part. They all have protective legislation and a range of tax incentives, tax forgiveness measures, and grant programs in recognition of the role that historic places play in their economy and in Canadian identity. But that's not enough, and the federal government is long overdue to show leadership and commitment in this area.
So we bring two recommendations to you today. The first is to establish a federal tax incentive to encourage investment in the rehabilitation of revenue-producing buildings. The tools are already in place to administer such a program. The historic places initiative, an extraordinary example of cooperative federalism, created a register of historic places and standards and guidelines to assess the quality of work for which we are promoting a tax incentive.
There is a commercial heritage property incentive fund that you may be aware of. The contribution program ends in 2007. It's been very successful, but it's not enough. Really for the commercial sector, a tax incentive is much more predictable and less administratively burdensome to administer and really helps ensure that projects will move forward successfully. So that's our first recommendation.
Our second is that you introduce direct funding to assist in the preservation of historic places owned by non-profit organizations, registered charities, institutions, and individuals. We need to recognize that approximately 70% of heritage buildings in Canada would not benefit from a tax measure because they are not used for commercial or revenue-generating purposes. These include places of worship, farm buildings, city halls, residences, and other historic places.
Both of the recommendations we've brought before you will stimulate investment in Canadian projects, infrastructure and communities, create new employment in the construction trades and professions, enhance cultural tourism, which is a huge source of revenue for our country, and keep historic buildings, some of our largest consumer goods, out of landfill sites.
If we do nothing, the rate of loss will continue. We have lost 20% of our historic buildings to demolition over the last thirty years, and that's not acceptable.
Thank you very much for your time.