Finance Committee on Oct. 2nd, 2006

[Sierra van der Meer]

I can confirm I am a real person, and I am indeed upset about the literacy cuts.

In terms of the question about literacy cuts being debated during a time for women's issues, I think it's important to note that statistically women do have lower literacy than men. That was in the IALS survey released earlier this year. I think it brings up a very important point about literacy as an intergenerational problem. We talk about women, and specifically mothers and the importance of being able to pass on literacy skills from parent to child. One of the biggest problems in literacy is that it is intergenerational. So when we have an incident such as John Baird saying last week that there wasn't much point in fixing the problem, it was time to go from the ground up, that just doesn't work, because you have the parents in the home. They're the very first ones to be delivering literacy programs in even the most basic sense of rhyming and reading with young children. If those parents don't have the capacity to do that, then you look at a whole new generation that struggles with literacy and has challenges.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Thank you.

I have two questions for Ian. The first question I would like a short answer to. It's just a simple question. Has IPY funding been approved by government and Treasury Board, and does it need to be approved?

My second question is this. It is my understanding that Kirk Cameron wanted to present before this committee. He was pushing this cold water technology centre, and I hope you get the brochure translated into French. Perhaps you would like to comment on whether you'd like this committee to recommend funding for this proposed cold weather technology centre for the north.

[Ian Church]

Peter MacKay again recommitted the previous government's commitment of an additional $150 million from the federal government for two aspects of IPY. It's still going through Treasury Board, so as of yet it is not free money for us to actually begin to utilize.

In terms of the cold weather climate cluster, I think we would very much appreciate support. We're getting support from outside organizations, from academics on the outside who want to utilize it. We need help from the major funder in Canada for research, which is obviously the federal government, but this would build strength in the local economy, allow us not only to serve the traditional industrial base but also to develop new products that we could market globally.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Thank you.

My next question is for Doug.

I'm delighted you mentioned the actual remarkable legacy of our government-related infrastructure programs: rural, municipal infrastructure agreements, both strategic infrastructure and the northern strategic fund, the gas tax refund, and the rebate of the GST.

We had committed in the last election to renewing a lot of those permanently, making them permanent, but there's no other commitment to do that. I am wondering if you're in favour of making these permanent so you'd have some certainty.

[Doug Graham]

There's no doubt in our mind whatsoever. We would love to see them made permanent, but I should say that one of the announcements that came from the current government that we really appreciated was the commitment to continue at least the first five years of the gas fund. So that was appreciated, but as you said, permanency would be a wonderful thing for us.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Thank you.

I'd like to thank the chair, actually, for recognizing me when we had the Senior Games, and I went there, to your hometown, just this past summer. It was a great event and the Yukon seniors did a great job.

I have four questions for you, Roberta, and you can answer any of them or just talk about whatever you want, because seniors are so important. One is that we increased the income supplement for poor seniors and also...the new horizons program. I want to know if those were helpful at all in the Yukon and if they should be continued and...more increases. I'd also like to know whether the cuts that Canada Mortgage and Housing came with had any effect, if they helped the seniors, and if the increase of income taxes this year to 12.5% for all Canadians, which would include seniors who don't have much to spend, is bad and hurtful, and whether you would like us to change that.

So any of those topics or anything else that would help seniors....

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

You have about thirty seconds, Roberta, to tackle Mr. Bagnell's questionnaire.

[Roberta Morgan]

The national program for seniors does help very much and has been very beneficial. As I said, any tax breaks are for middle- and higher-income seniors. They are not for the people whom we are most concerned about, the seniors with a lower income and in poverty, and I think the only thing that will help them is renewing the Old Age Security Act and bringing it up to the 21st century with the rest of us.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

Thank you, Mr. Bagnell and Ms. Morgan.

I should also congratulate the Yukon seniors who participated in the Canada Senior Games, which Mr. Bagnell referred to here today. They received the team award as excelling, and it was a most impressive participation. So I should mention that.

[Roberta Morgan]

We thoroughly enjoyed it, and the people of Manitoba were fantastic.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

Thank you. Madam Wasylycia-Leis will take that back to Manitoba with some pride, but in particular, for my community of Portage la Prairie, it was an honour to host the event. We were really pleased.

We will continue.

The second questioner will be Mr. St-Cyr.

You have six minutes.

You have headsets. What's the French word for that again?

They're called “des écouteurs”.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

First of all, welcome and thank you for your presentation to the committee.

I was particularly interested in Mr. Graham's presentation. He talked about the permafrost that was melting in a number of locations. As far as Kyoto is concerned, the Canadian North is one region in particular where the devastating effects of climate change are being observed.

I'd like to focus on comments made earlier by Mr. Wallace. For the sake of clarity, the Kyoto Protocol is, first and foremost, a series of international targets that countries have set for themselves. There is nothing in the Protocol that says we have to buy emission credits from Russia to reach our targets. Absolutely nothing at all.

Admittedly, the Protocol does set out emission credit principles. Global warming is a widespread phenomenon and it's less expensive to reduce greenhouse gases in some places than in others. Therefore, countries in which this process is too costly can buy credits, and in so doing, they help out countries where reducing greenhouse gases is a less costly undertaking.

That being said, I don't think this is the best solution. The Bloc Québécois has always maintained that the best approach is first and foremost to invest in reducing greenhouse gas emission levels here in Canada. Buying emission credits and paying other countries to lower their emission levels is an interim solution. That's more or less what the Liberals were proposing.

The third option put forward by the Conservatives consisted of paying oil and other companies to pollute. In my view, that's the worst possible option. Therefore, I don't subscribe to the Conservative's argument which goes like this: The Liberals were bad, so let's be worse. I don't think we should be embarking on that course of action.

Are bearded environmentalists alone in viewing Kyoto as a major concern? If global warming continues at the present rate, what significant economic impact will this have on your communities?

No doubt Mr. Graham and Mr. Church can elaborate on this subject.

[Doug Graham]

There's no doubt about it. Especially in our northern communities, climate change is having a huge impact. We support the reduction of greenhouse gases, no matter how it's done. You only have to take a look at a place like Dawson City, where one end of their recreation complex sank into the ground and there was a four-inch bulge in the middle of an arena floor, to realize that climate change is very real. And it's having a dramatic impact on all of our communities.

We now have to pump heated water through many of our water systems because of the difficulties we're experiencing in infrastructure in the territories. So it's a real problem, and anything that can be done to alleviate those difficulties is, to our minds, very appropriate.

[Ian Church]

Thanks.

I think there are two or three things I'd like to say on this. I spend a lot of time on the climate change issue

First, technical adaptation and also social adaptation--how we adjust to the climate change that's going to happen no matter what we do--are key problems. Then obviously there is how we lessen the change.

With respect to Kyoto, you're absolutely right that it doesn't require you to do one approach or the other. But those approaches are available to you. You're right that just buying credits doesn't necessarily solve the problem over the long term. We're talking probably 60% to 80% reductions over the next 50 or 100 years.

In the north, we have major infrastructure problems. We need investment in technology and new technologies, because as people said, the ground is actually changing underneath us. Our foundation is changing. We have to understand the processes that are going on, and we need science to understand it.

I don't think people understood a hundred years ago that the polar regions were huge drivers of the climate systems on the globe. It's not just that the north is changing, but that the north can actually accelerate the system on a global basis. Methane release and all these kinds of concepts could make all our other efforts useless if we don't understand what's going on in the north.

We also have to understand that as part of adaptation there are issues of self-sufficiency, issues about how people in the north sustain themselves--sustainable communities--because in reality the technologies and the things we count on now may not be the most climate change friendly approaches to doing things. You know, with regard to bringing in orange juice from wherever we bring in orange juice, or even worse, bringing in fresh oranges, maybe there are ways of taking advantage of a change in climate to make northerners more self-sufficient and less dependent on pursuing climate unfriendly approaches.

Thanks.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

Thank you very much.

You're time is up, Mr. St-Cyr.

We'll continue with Mr. Del Mastro now.

You have six minutes, sir.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good morning, everyone. I appreciated listening to your presentations.

I want to start first with Ms. Cunning.

You indicated that over the last two years you've received about $70,000 in museum assistance program funding. I want to ask you just quickly, are you aware of what the MAP funding was for 2004-05 in total?

[Patricia Cunning]

No.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

That's okay. I just wanted to use it for illustration. I imagine most of my colleagues aren't aware of it either.

[Patricia Cunning]

I don't know the amount for the Yukon. The amount for Canada was $9 million.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Right. It was $9.4 million for 2004-05.

This year it was slated for $11.8 million--as it was last year. The problem with the program last year is that it only distributed about $7.5 million of the $11.8 million. It had an efficiency gap of about $4.3 million in administrative costs, and it was labelled because it was running at about a 40% cost factor. We'd like to see the program operate at about a 20% administrative cost.

In fact, the $9.5 million budget that it's going to receive over the next two years is actually an increase over the 2004-05 budget. Were you aware of that?

[Patricia Cunning]

No.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Okay.

We've indicated that these would be administrative-type cuts. There is certainly nothing that we're expecting to see at the museum level. Were you aware of that?

[Patricia Cunning]

I heard that.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Good.

Ms. Jansen, perhaps you could--

[Patricia Cunning]

Sorry. I'd like to address that, if I may.

I think there are two issues--