Finance Committee on Oct. 2nd, 2006

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

In your opinion, if we were to make a recommendation, should we be asking for more funding for daycares, or for more money to be paid directly to parents?

[Debbie Throssell]

Child care probably needs all of that, but the main point is that we want to make day care accessible for everybody. At the moment it's not.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

Thank you very much.

Next up is Mr. Dykstra.

You have five minutes, sir.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair. There were a couple of points made that piqued my interest.

Ms. Adamson, in terms of understanding the direction in which broadcasting will go and the fact that you were looking for some funding to be able to do an assessment of who is listening and what the demographics may look like, in terms of advertising and sponsorship of the programs, how does that work and what success have you achieved in that area?

[Shirley Adamson]

I think what you have to understand is the background from which aboriginal broadcasting has grown. It's a creation of the Government of Canada, in recognizing its shortfall with the public broadcaster. The public broadcaster has a mandate to reflect the society around it. Clearly, the aboriginal and northern population was successful in convincing Canada that this wasn't happening. So the background goes back a couple of decades. You know that.

In order to maintain this relationship of core funding from Canadian Heritage, the societies have to operate as non-profit societies, so they're severely restricted in how they can augment their funding. Unfortunately, for a number of organizations that are created from this type of arrangement, there's a false sense of economy that prevails, and the relationship of having to apply for funding and receiving funding only when triggered by submission of quarterly financial and activity reports, to show that there's no augmenting--

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

Ms. Adamson, I appreciate that. I'm sorry, but I only have five minutes and I'm just trying to determine whether you actually sell advertising or whether you don't.

[Shirley Adamson]

Northern Native Broadcasting, the non-profit society, does not.

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

It does not. Okay. Thank you. That's obviously something to consider.

Mr. Carvill, I appreciated your comments with respect to the smoking in schools and your thoughts that the success of the program would be more from an educational perspective.

There was an additional $450 million put into this year's budget to deal with improving the water supply, housing on reserve, and educational outcomes. Given that the tobacco control strategy was cancelled because it basically wasn't effective in terms of achieving its goal of lowering the numbers of those smoking and getting them not to smoke, I wondered if you're right in the sense that if it is in the education area, and the government is investing an additional $450 million, with part of that going to education, we should in fact use that funding to be able to drive the types of programs you think will be successful.

[Grand Chief Andy Carvill]

I believe it would help, definitely.

And as far as the $450 million to address housing and water safety and other issues is concerned, we don't see a lot of that in the north because we still have to abide by, and are stuck with, the on-reserve/off-reserve policy. So the first nations south of sixty degrees are the ones who see the majority of the funding. Up here in the north we have a very difficult time accessing anything to help us with respect to the health of our people, with respect to water and the education of our people. So we have to look at some of those types of changes.

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

I don't know how much time I have left, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Taylor, one of the reasons for cancellation of the rebate with respect to GST for out-of-country visitors was that there was only a 3% uptake by those involved in it.

I understand your position, which you stated very clearly, as to how you feel about it, but would it not be prudent at the same time, or something to look at, to use some of those funds to market to our out-of-country visitors and potential visitors, and therefore get a better bang for our dollar from a direct perspective, so that companies can actually see some benefits from our getting engaged in a marketing strategy?

[Rod Taylor]

Yes. There are two issues.

One thing is that if we honestly thought the money would end up going to marketing, it would be something we would definitely entertain. Our fear is that it's not.

The second thing—and this is a different—

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

Your fear is justified.

[Rod Taylor]

Yes.

The difference in the north is this: the majority of the tourism product here is high-end. It's low-volume, high-margin.

Just so you know, every single client I've had in the last ten years has availed themselves of the rebate program, so it's different here.

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

But as you understand, across the country—

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

I'm sorry, Mr. Dykstra, but your time is up.

We continue with Mr. Bagnell, for five minutes, sir.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Thank you.

Mr. Chair, you graciously said we wouldn't have a federal election before the Yukon election is over, but your party has a bill before Parliament that would have a federal election in 2009, three days from a Yukon election, so I hope you'll support my amendments to fix that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

Well, there is time for the Yukon to adjust, I suppose, Mr. Bagnell.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Oh, for the Yukon to adjust?

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

That's an Ottawa approach!

I'm glad Karen brought up the climate change impacts and adaptation program, in case I don't get to her. That is very important.

But, Shirley, can you answer on behalf of all native broadcasters across the country the question that Stanley didn't have time to answer? The problem is the ridiculous one of your starting to pay bills on April 1 but not getting your funding or notice until later in the year.

[Shirley Adamson]

Thank you.

Let me just say that even though there are 13 non-profit societies created by this access program, not all get the same amount of money; some in fact operate on as little as $300,000 per annum.

If there are no arrangements to ensure continuity of funding in a timely manner, then we end up paying the extra interest on loans, if we were able to secure loans without a signed contribution agreement, and/or heavy penalties on payments that are not made.

The program is designed in a manner that we're not able to retain or maintain any reserves, which creates again that false sense of economy and also the overriding fear that you're only ever one step away from failure.

Having said that, we've been able to turn ourselves into a success story, but because the funding has not been increasing, each year.... In fact each year our paycheque is worth less.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Thank you.

Mr. Taylor, your excellent executive director, Patti Balsillie, made a great case in Ottawa that the Yukon is perhaps the only jurisdiction in Canada where tourism is the biggest private sector employer.

I'm delighted you mentioned the effect of cuts to the GST on foreigners and the Canadian Tourism Commission, but is it also bad that there were cuts to summer student programs and museums? Are those important to tourism in the Yukon?

[Rod Taylor]

They are, particularly in the Yukon, because they are a big part of why people come here. The historical aspect of tourism in the Yukon is huge. Whether a person comes to paddle a canoe, go hunting, or whatever, inevitably they avail themselves of the fantastic museums we have here. So that's important.

The student issue is big, only because of the crunch we have here for HR. As you know, it's incredibly difficult to find employees right now, particularly in the service industry.

The other thing I want to add is that here in the Yukon, the thing about the tourism industry is that it's consistent. It doesn't rely on the volatility of those commodity prices like everything else. So when we're going through the crests and troughs of our resource industry, traditionally we're absolutely consistent. That's why little things like that 3% make a huge difference to tourism here. We need it. It's our lifeblood.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Mackay, we were proposing $3,000 for the first and last years for students in post-secondary education--in fact, for all years for low-income students. Would that be useful?

[Stu Mackay]

It would definitely be useful. If we decide on the principle that post-secondary education should be accessible to all, we have to look at all the issues we have in terms of people who are underrepresented in post-secondary education. That envelopes how we re-engage seniors and deal with literacy issues and the serious issue of how to engage first nations youth in education, and so on.

If we agree on the principle that post-secondary education is a tool for managing the economy, we also have to agree on what strategies we need in place in order to make that accessibility successful.

I would again allow the grand chief to speak to the educational needs of first nations, which are excellent right now because they're implementing their land claims agreements.