Finance Committee on Oct. 2nd, 2006

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

My question is this. You talked about Kyoto and global warming, and I want to make sure you're aware that the Liberal plan for Kyoto was to buy credits--carbon credits--in countries and not in Canada. They weren't subsidizing companies in Canada; they were sending it to developing countries around the world. I want to know what your organization feels about that approach to making our Kyoto commitment as a country.

[Karen Baltgailis]

I'm going to have our climate change expert fill in for me on this one.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

What would your name be, sir?

[Lewis Rifkind, Energy Coordinator, Yukon Conservation Society]

My name is Lewis Rifkind.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

Welcome.

You have a very brief time for that answer.

[Lewis Rifkind]

Thank you. Thanks for the question.

We have to get greenhouse gas emissions down. However the government in power chooses to do it, good for them, as long as greenhouse gases are reduced.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

Thank you, sir, for that concise response. I appreciate that.

Thank you to our panel members today, very much, sincerely. We appreciate your participation. The time you've taken to prepare your briefs, the time you've taken to be here today, is very important. And on behalf of this committee and your fellow Canadians, we very much appreciate your involvement today.

We will briefly suspend as we allow the second panel to take their places at the table, and we will reconvene in less than five minutes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

I welcome our guests, who are here on time, on behalf of the committee. I appreciate your being here.

The House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance is mandated by the House of Commons on an annual basis to consider and make reports upon proposals regarding the budgetary policies of the government. This year the theme of our pre-budget consultation is Canada's place in a competitive world.

We appreciate the time you've taken to be with us today. We appreciate the work you've put into your briefs, and we look forward to hearing from you now.

You've been asked to keep your comments to five minutes, and if you were here during the last session you know I will cut you off at five minutes. I will, however, give you a visual indication of the time remaining, if you wish to make eye contact, to show that you have a minute remaining or less—just to give you a chance to wind up your presentation.

We will begin with the representative from the Association of Yukon Communities, Doug Graham, president.

Welcome, Mr. Graham. Five minutes are yours, sir.

[Doug Graham, President, Association of Yukon Communities]

Thank you very much.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you very much for the opportunity to address your committee.

The Association of Yukon Communities represents all incorporated municipalities and elected local advisory councils in Yukon. Over 80% of the population of Yukon reside in member communities of the association.

When we met with this committee in November 2004 we asked that existing levels of federal transfer payments to Yukon grow to meet the increasing population. We also asked that the current level of infrastructure funding be increased to support municipal infrastructure, railroads, and highways. Finally, we also asked that the distribution formula, such as the 1% baseline funding amount used for the municipal rural infrastructure fund, which mitigates the inequities of simple per capita funding for northern programs, be considered for inclusion.

I am pleased to report that our requests were heard and are reflected in federal funding programs such as the municipal rural infrastructure fund, the green municipal fund, the Canadian strategic infrastructure fund, the strategic investment northern economic development fund, and the Canada-Yukon gas tax sharing agreement.

The sustainability of Yukon communities is important to Canada. Yukon's mineral resources, its boreal forests, and pristine rivers are of significant Canadian economic value. Yukon communities are the protectors of the sovereignty of those resources and the gateways to them.

In the next couple of minutes I want to tell you about a very important need of Yukon municipalities. Healthy and sustainable communities cannot exist on user fees and property taxes in the territory alone. There is an infrastructure deficit in Yukon communities. This deficit has been reduced through federal programs such as the municipal rural infrastructure fund, the Canadian strategic infrastructure fund, and the Canada-Yukon gas tax sharing agreement, but the deficit still exists and is growing.

At the same time, older infrastructure is deteriorating and being added to the list for replacement. It would appear, for instance, that global warming might increase the permafrost melt in Dawson City, rapidly increasing the maintenance and replacement costs of sewer and water infrastructure in that town. Eliminating the infrastructure deficit will require long-term planning and sustained federal contributions.

The federal gas tax sharing model for infrastructure funding shows great promise for Yukon communities. In that model, funds are allocated directly to Yukon municipalities and first nations for the period of the agreement. Matching funds are not required. Long-term planning through the development of integrated community sustainability plans is required for all recipients under the gas tax agreement.

The gas tax sharing model has the following significant advantages: the process of developing long-term sustainability plans has brought communities together; first nations are working with municipal governments to share ideas and facilities; very small municipalities, with very small property tax bases and limited borrowing capacity, are freed from the requirement of producing matching funds and can fund their priorities, rather than being levered into sharing the burden of territorial priorities.

Our recommendations to the committee are that the federal gas tax sharing program be continued, with expanded project eligibility to include economic development, parks, recreation, culture, and other social infrastructure. Other programs applicable to Yukon communities should be designed, taking into consideration the unique needs and limited capacities of small rural and remote communities. Early collaboration with the territorial government and the association of communities should be required and is in fact essential if the long-term needs of Yukon communities are to be met.

Thank you very much for your interest in coming to the territory and hearing from all of us. We really do appreciate it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

Thank you very much, Mr. Graham.

We'll continue now with the representative from the Yukon Council on Aging, Roberta Morgan.

Welcome. Five minutes are yours.

[Roberta Morgan, President, Yukon Council on Aging]

Thank you for inviting the Yukon Council on Aging to participate in your pre-budget consultation.

I'd like to address your first theme, that is, that our citizens are healthy, have proper skills, and are presented with appropriate incentives to work and save.

When we speak of citizens, we must include all citizens of Canada, including the growing senior and elder population. In order to keep the older population healthy, we must invest in their needs--physical, emotional, and mental. When money is designated for programs, some must be designated for that purpose, instead of territorial and provincial governments putting it into general coffers and overlooking the needs of this minority of the population. Good examples of this are affordable housing for seniors, preventive health care for seniors, and programs specifically for seniors in poverty.

There has long been a myth that all seniors are rich. From the top of the bureaucracy, this may appear to be true, but it is not. There are hundreds of thousands of seniors and elders across our country existing on meagre pensions through no fault of their own. This will continue to be the case because there will always be workers in the service industries, families that could not save for their retirement or that do not work for companies offering pensions. We need people in appropriate government departments who can look beyond what they will have when they retire and see the reality. We need to review the pension system in Canada so it will help those most in need instead of punishing them.

More skilled workers are needed in Canada. We have a generation of skilled workers who were forced to retire because they became “that age”. While we are training new workers, we need to encourage those skilled workers to come back, if only on a part-time basis, and help us. To do this we need to offer incentives. Tax incentives would help those in the middle- or high-income bracket. It would not help the lower-income-bracket seniors who most need the income because their income is so low they do not pay taxes.

Seniors who are making $13,000 a year cannot afford to go out and help themselves because they are penalized if they do. If they are receiving the guaranteed income supplement, it will be taken away from them, and they may even have to pay some of it back. If they live in government-subsidized housing, they must give their territorial or provincial government 25% of everything they earn. The same is true of young people living in subsidized housing. Where is the incentive to do better? There must be a ceiling on these rental costs. Seniors on GIS must be allowed to make a set amount that will take them up or just above the poverty level before they are penalized and it is clawed back.

We have seniors and elders who are skilled workers who can fill the breach until more are trained, but we penalize them rather than encouraging them. We need programs to address the specific needs of senior health care and health care prevention programs for seniors. Seniors are willing to help themselves if they are given the guidance to do so. There has been a great deal of work done in the field of aging research, but no follow-up to put the research into good use. We cannot have healthy people if they do not have affordable and adequate housing. We need CMHC to be more than a mortgage corporation. We need them back for affordable housing support. As a country, we should be ashamed of the housing that many of our seniors and elders live in.

How does all this fit into your theme as a meaningful place in the world of the future and maximize our potential as a nation? The skilled workers of yesterday are those who can help fill the gap until new skilled workers are trained. It gives a purpose to the lives of many seniors and elders and gives them respect and dignity. It makes for a healthier country. How can you ignore the needs of the people who brought Canada to the great country it is today and expect to continue to portray ourselves as a great investment? It would by a hypocrisy.

Thank you for your time today.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

Thank you very much, Madam Morgan. We appreciate your presentation.

We continue now with Patricia Cunning.

On behalf of the committee, welcome. I will give you an indication that you have a minute remaining on your five-minute presentation. We appreciate your being here, and please proceed.

[Patricia Cunning, Executive Director, MacBride Museum]

Thank you very much.

Thank you to the committee. We appreciate the timeliness of your being here, since we're here to talk about museum issues.

I'm the executive director of a local museum. We are the territory's first and largest museum. We have the largest collection in the territory. I have outlined in my briefing some of the history of the institution, which I'm not going to address.

What I am going to say is that we were federally funded in 2003 to do an audience evaluation of Yukoners and Whitehorse citizens. In that audience evaluation we heard that museums have a strong role in our community to protect and promote our heritage and that they have a role in delivering education on Canadian heritage.

What we heard specifically about MacBride Museum from people in Whitehorse was that they want more local programs, lectures, and history about us, about the city of Whitehorse and about the Yukon, and not just a tourism attraction, which is in part what we are for our community. We also heard that they expect to see that the artifacts they donate to the institution make it into our exhibits.

Since that time we have developed nine curriculum-linked programs for education. We deliver approximately 200 programs each year into the local audience. In 2005, in Whitehorse, there were 4,500 local citizens--from a population of approximately 24,000--who attended events at MacBride Museum. Our attendance is up 20% since 2003.

I am here in part to say that we are very disappointed to hear our national government say that the funding for the programs that support us is both wasteful and not a priority for Canadians. Overall we are seeing increased attendance at museums across Canada. There are 2,000 small community or regional museums like the one I run, and the only way we are able to put funding together is like a jigsaw puzzle of funding from our municipalities, from the federal government program, and from our earned revenue. At MacBride Museum our revenue is 35% earned, 35% funded by the territorial government, approximately 10% to 15% municipal, and then depending upon whether or not we've been successful in applying for federal programs, we've received between 9% and 20% of our funding from the federal government over the last four years. We appreciate that funding, and we are extremely concerned to see a national cut to MAP. MAP does not fund museums in Ottawa; it funds regional, community museums. If you're going to cut that program by 25%, I would like you to tell me where I am going to get the $70,000 that I got from the federal government in the last two years to deliver our online content for rural schools in the Yukon and do back-of-house work on our collections.

Governments love to fund exhibits and they love to fund presentations. Without the funding for the back-of-house, we are unable to do that work. The MAP program is the only program in the federal government that is dedicated exclusively to museums, and it allows us to do back-of-house work.

I would encourage you not only to continue to fund MAP, but also to increase the funding for MAP to expand the criteria under which MAP travelling exhibits are funded. Right now travelling exhibits are funded only if I want to do an exhibit and send it to Ontario. The Yukon has a huge geography. I would like to do an exhibit and send it to the rest of the territory so we can share in our own history and culture. That does not qualify for funding at any level of government.

We would also like you to give consideration to summer student funding. In the past three years at the museum I operate, our funding for summer students has been halved, and that is typical of what's happened across the territory. We're in a competitive environment. We are trying to introduce kids to careers and culture, and we can't get funding for their positions.

In addition to that, we would also like you to look at continuing funding for the Canadian Council of Archives. It is the only place where I, as a museum director, have any ability to access direct funding for our archives....

I've been given the hook and I've no idea where I was.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

Patricia, I want to make it absolutely clear that this finger...[Inaudible--Editor].

We'll add to your time. Please continue.

[Patricia Cunning]

I appreciate that all of you have made the effort to come here and I know you're hearing from a whole bunch of sectors.

The heritage sector is part of how we define ourselves as a country; it's who we are in terms of our identity as Canadians. I'm very disappointed to see a government that is cutting funding to the institutions that deliver that on a local basis.

I encourage you to look again, not just at the programs funded by Canadian Heritage but also at the employment funding for students.

Thank you very much for your time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

Thank you for your presentation.

We continue with Ian Church, who is here on behalf of the Canadian IPY National Committee.

Welcome. You have five minutes, sir.

[Ian Church, Chair, Canadian IPY National Committee]

Thank you, and welcome to the north.

I think we all know that research in technology, or technological innovation and development, are major drivers of any nation and any regional competitiveness. In fact, it's a driver of human history. It has assisted people in developing marketable and competitive products, which is often the way people look at it, but it also helps us provide better services, it helps us protect our environment, and it also helps us better understand ourselves, our past, the landscape we live on, and where our future may lie.

Historically in Canada research and development investment has been increasing over the years. The latest figures I've seen are about $24.5 billion invested in 2004-05. Yet the north represents a good half of the Canadian landscape the way we define it. It also represents about half of the diversity in terms of Canada's landscape, and the federal investment in northern science and technology, according to the last figures that were available, which are about three years old now, was about $133 million.

The international polar year is the longest established program of coordinated international research. It goes back 125 years. It was the first year of anything. It was a recognition that the north was a hard place to get to, it was a hard place to do research in. And you could stand there in your little ship, if it didn't sink, and hope that, by gosh, you could see what was happening here, but you didn't understand what was going on and what was driving it over the horizon. That was the birthplace of the international polar year. There have been three of them since.

To give you an example of how that has helped Canada, in 1932, in the middle of the Depression, the University of Saskatchewan sent four expeditions north to look at the aurora. Why the aurora? People were starting to realize the aurora was interfering with Canadian radio. They didn't know why. They didn't know how. But these four expeditions went north. That levered into the next polar year in 1957-58, the international geophysical year, a major push by a large number of countries. Churchill became a major rocket base to study the upper atmospheric phenomena. In reality there were over 2,000 rockets blasted by both Canada and the United States. Those same people became the leaders, those four graduate students of the University of Saskatchewan.

The University of Saskatchewan and Saskatoon are now a hub of space-related research because of that. They're very proud of it. There's an estimated billion dollars worth of activity that goes on annually around space, space monitoring, and earth observation out of that area.

In 2007-08 it's actually a two-year international polar year, and some of us know it's already ongoing. It involves over 60 countries, over 60,000 scientists. It involves youth, it involves aboriginal organizations, it involves non-government organizations, academics, and what have you. Canada is the largest northern polar nation in terms of land in the polar region. It's a major player.

I passed around a chart, and I didn't have enough of the pretty coloured ones for you, but the green on this chart represents Canadian involvement in this polar year. Each one of those grids is a major program, maybe 100 studies. I think it gives an indication of just how involved we are. What we need for the future is to build on the legacy, the momentum, of this polar year. We need to look at academic institutions in the north. We're the only northern country without a northern university. We need to look at research stations and platforms. They've deteriorated over the last fifty years, for the most part. There are some good examples of progress made in Quebec, for instance, but elsewhere they're in bad shape. We need to look at technical innovation. We can market that technical innovation. There's a program that you've had a little handout on, something that's going on in the Yukon in terms of a centre to test technological innovation and make those moves forward in the Yukon, but there are other initiatives going on elsewhere across the north. We also have to build on Antarctica.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

Thank you very much, Mr. Church.

There will be time for questions, of course, after.

Rebecca Jansen is here on behalf of the Yukon Historical and Museums Association.

Welcome, Rebecca. You have five minutes.

[Rebecca Jansen, Executive Director, Yukon Historical and Museums Association]

Thank you for inviting us to be here today.

I'm going to talk to you about some of the same points that Patricia already made but in more general terms.

The Yukon Historical and Museums Association is the umbrella organization for Yukon museums and heritage societies. There are currently about eighteen museums, art galleries, and first nations cultural centres in the Yukon, which represent very diverse cultures and histories that really portray who we are as Yukoners.

In the Yukon, they're not only important culturally but also economically. A recent study showed that heritage attractions contributed about $3.3 million towards the Yukon's GDP and provided up to 10.4% of employment in communities outside Whitehorse.

For visitors coming to the Yukon, it's the third largest attraction and it's what people do when they come here. It's proven that it helps to encourage tourists to spend an extra day in the communities, which thereby boosts local spending in some of the communities that rely heavily on tourism as the main economic generator.

Having said that, museums are non-profit organizations, and we're faced with difficulties in securing funding. In the Yukon especially, we don't have a lot of large private companies to go to for funding support and that kind of thing. We rely heavily on the Yukon government and through federal government programs for funding to meet the needs of museums, whether it's student funding, project costs, or that kind of thing.

We were encouraged to see that the Conservative government has pledged to review the development of a federal museums policy, as it's important. Many levels for federal funding to museums are the same as they were in 1972. As you can imagine, insurance and general costs of living have increased by quite a bit since that time. It's not enough for us to be able to continue operating in the way that we would like to.

As Patricia mentioned, the museums assistance program is very important to us. It's a longstanding program, and museums in the Yukon have been using the program since its early inception in the 1970s.

The fund helped to do planning studies for the MacBride Museum, the Dawson City Museum, and the Yukon Transportation Museum. These are the Yukon's largest and most important museums. They house collections of hundreds of thousands of artifacts. They have also helped with funding for oral history for first nations and have helped the YHMA itself by doing training studies and developing joint marketing initiatives for museums.

To assist the Yukon museums, MAP annually contributes at least $150,000, if not more, to Yukon museums. You can see that it's a very important program for us and is used quite a bit.

Summer student funding is also a big issue. We have continued to advocate for increased funding to the summer career placement program and the Young Canada Works program. Students rely on this funding to gain the skills they need to start in the heritage sector and to continue in that sector.

In 2005 there were applications for funding for summer career placement that were worth approximately $500,000, but only $200,000 was available. All of these jobs were worthwhile and could have used the funding. We would implore you to increase that funding.

I'll quickly wrap it up. I want to quickly touch on the commercial heritage properties incentive fund. The heritage properties incentive is very important for Canadian heritage and for preserving our heritage places. By cancelling this fund, there hasn't been a chance for it to develop and grow or to see that the programs are worthwhile.

On behalf of the Yukon Historical Museums Association and our members, thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

Thank you very much, Ms. Jansen.

We'll now conclude our presentations with the Yukon Literacy Coalition and Sierra Van Der Meer.

Sierra, welcome. Five minutes is yours.

[Sierra van der Meer, Communication Coordinator, Yukon Literacy Coalition]

Hi. Thank you very much for having us here today.

This year Statistics Canada showed that 42% of Canadians have low literacy. The need for investment in literacy programs has never been higher. Despite this, on September 25 the federal government announced $17.7 million in cuts to literacy through the adult learning, literacy, and essential skills program, known as ALLESP. These cuts will affect the Yukon by a monetary value of approximately $300,000, the amount eliminated from the local, regional, and coalition funding streams.

Joe Clark, a former Conservative leader, once called Canada a “community of communities”. We couldn't agree more. We believe we are a country connected by ideals and by beliefs, but unique in our needs. The literacy needs of a little fishing town in Newfoundland are not the same as the literacy needs of Old Crow or Burwash Landing. This is why local and regional literacy funding was so important. It had the ability to deliver services that met the unique cultural and regional needs of learners.

In addition to local and regional funding cuts, the federal budget included the elimination of literacy coalition funding. Literacy coalitions exist in every province and territory and are integral to literacy. They provide practitioner support and training, develop research materials, disseminate literacy information, promote the value of literacy skills, and conduct literacy research.

The federal government created provincial and territorial literacy coalitions sixteen years ago, and since then coalitions have spearheaded successful, innovative literacy programs and activities across the country. Without coalitions, across this country the practitioners and stakeholders, and most of all the learners, will suffer.

Literacy programming was cut because it was categorized as not having good value for money. We strongly disagree. We know that literacy impacts the economy in a multitude of ways. When the first international adult literacy survey, IALS, was released, Statistics Canada indicated that a 1% increase in literacy skills in this country would lead to a $15 billion increase in the GDP. How can literacy skills not be considered of good value when such a small increase would make such an enormous financial impact?

While there is a value to high literacy skills, there is also a cost to low literacy. People with low literacy are more likely to become involved in the justice system, both as victims and offenders. They leave a bigger burden on the health care system, frequenting hospitals more often and having higher morbidity and mortality rates. They are more likely to require social assistance or live in low-income situations. The costs of illiteracy are widespread and significant.

But literacy is about more than a bottom line. Literacy allows Canadians to fully function in their society, to be active, strong citizens. It is a value that exceeds dollar signs and balance sheets.

I must admit that it seems kind of funny for us to present before the Standing Committee on Finance only one week after the funding was cut in such a drastic manner. I'm not sure if the standing committee is looking for requests or is looking for advice. I'm not sure what exactly is being asked of us.

If we did have some advice or requests to give, it would be that the federal government relook at these cuts in literacy and really consider what the long-term impact of these changes would be, what would happen without the regional and local funding for literacy, and how literacy across the country is to proceed in a unified way without the literacy coalitions that keep it moving.

Thank you very much for allowing us to present.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

Thank you very much for your presentation.

To all of you, thank you for your presentations; well done.

We'll go to questions now, commencing with Mr. Bagnell.

Six minutes, sir.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First, to Patricia and Rebecca, I'm not going to ask you a question because you spoke so well, and also because in my speech last week in Parliament, I mentioned that Ed and Brent from the Yukon, and David from your national association, also decried the cuts to museums.

To Sierra, I gave a speech last Thursday in the House of Commons on just what you're talking about today. I was interrupted twice by points of order. The first time was to ask why I was talking about literacy cuts on a day when we were talking about women's issues cuts. Perhaps you could tell me if literacy affects women at all; I shouldn't have been interrupted.

The second time I was interrupted, I was asked why I was quoting people who couldn't be confirmed, and quoting Yukoners instead of debating. Of course, lots of Yukoners were upset with these cuts. Could you confirm that you are a real person and that you are upset about the literacy cuts?

[Voices]

Oh, oh!