Finance Committee on Oct. 17th, 2006

[Judy Cutler]

Maybe I'm not responding to what you're referring to.

[Garth Turner, Conservative, Halton, ON]

I don't quite understand how you can suck and blow at the same time, how you can ask for more money and criticize the government for cutting program spending. If we're going to reallocate resources, it is all about choices. For example, we give $245 million a year to museums and we cut $2.3 million in administrative expenses, so we're still giving stable funding of $245 million.

I'm just a little concerned that CARP is trying to now play the role of a social advocate here. You had some excellent points in your brief, and you're not helping your cause here when you're criticizing us for trying to keep government within the economic framework.

I know we're going to run out of time here, but--

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

I'm sorry, we have run out of time.

We'll continue with Madam Wasylycia-Leis now. It's six minutes to you, Madam.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairperson.

I want to start off by saying that I respect all of your presentations. I think your recommendations are made with the spirit of being constructive and cooperative, and I certainly disagree with any suggestion that any of you are trying to suck and blow at the same time. If anybody's having trouble here, it is the Conservatives, or at least one Conservative member who just can't seem to figure out the difference between voodoo economics and--

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

Order, Madam Wasylycia-Leis.

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

--proper policy-making.

I want to ask a question to--

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

Order.

We'll move on if you do not respect the chair, Madam.

Now, continue to address your remarks only to the panellists and proceed.

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

Yes, Mr. Chairperson.

On a point of order.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

On a point of order.

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

I felt compelled to say that, because--

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

There is no point of order. Proceed with your questions. The clock is running.

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

All right. Mr. Chairperson, I hope that you will at least ensure that we treat our witnesses with respect from here on in.

Michel and Mark, you've made excellent presentations on the need for cooperative development and worker co-ops. I think your recommendations are a bit out of date, at least in the written documents, because of the fact that this government actually did cut--eliminate--the whole social economy initiative, which means we're starting from square one. We also know that CDI runs out in 2007 and we need to figure out how to convince this government to carry on with that program, even in the face of its callous, meanspirited cutbacks on the social economy side.

What is your advice for us to try to get back this very important initiative for creating jobs and building communities?

[Michel Rouleau]

The social economy program was launched in 2004. It enables social economy enterprises, cooperatives as well as non-profit organizations, to acquire capital. At this stage, the focus of our concern is capitalization.

We're proposing that this initiative be reintroduced. In all, there are four social economy agencies located in Quebec, Ontario, Western Canada and Atlantic Canada. The Quebec agency has been around for some time and its positive benefits are well known. However, the three other agencies were lagging behind and we wanted them pick up the pace. But in actual fact, this initiative was stopped. There has been talk of enterprises that make up the new fabric of the social economy and that will help satisfy the needs of the public. There is talk of creating businesses to address community needs. We're proposing that this component be reintroduced so that businesses can acquire capital and grow.

In short, we're asking the government to reintroduce this measure which fundamentally, in our opinion, was not that costly to maintain.

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

Thank you.

[Mark Goldblatt]

I'm just going to very briefly answer your question.

From the point of view of the Canadian Worker Co-operative Federation, just being completely straightforward about this, our attention and energy would now be shifting towards expanding the federal government's co-op development initiative. That is a generic co-op program that has had an enormous track record of success. None of us knows whether that social economy program can be revived in any way, but even if it can't, I think with respect to the co-op development initiative that for the worker co-op movement, expanding that program would be of the most direct benefit to us at this point in the political process.

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

Thank you very much.

Phil, let me ask you a question about the difficulties we face in trying to move forward on a national strategy dealing with mental health. Would you agree that some of the cutbacks in this recent announcement only make it harder? Secondly, how do we ensure that the next budget finally addresses this long outstanding issue?

[Phil Upshall]

Cutbacks to anything don't hurt people with mental illnesses, because there is no funding for them anyway. It's like wait times or wait lines. We don't have any wait lines, because there is nothing to wait for. We're at the bottom of the barrel, Judy. There is nothing the government can do to cut back that will really impact us in a significant way. Homelessness remains rampant; suicide remains rampant; depression is at one of the highest levels in the western world. Nothing is being done about it, so cutbacks don't help or hurt us.

What helps us is a reflection on the fact that there is no health without mental health. What helps us is that if we start working on mental health in a positive way through the development of the commission, that commission will have a mandate to work towards a national strategy. That national strategy, I think, will be very comprehensive if it follows along the lines Kirby and Keon recommend. We'll see an incredible change in the fabric of the Government of Canada and the federal employees, in the happiness and welfare of Canadians, and in the tax revenues of Canada. So cutbacks don't hurt; they don't.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

Thank you, Mr. Upshall.

We'll continue now with Mr. McCallum, with five minutes to you.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I certainly support my NDP colleague's point about respect towards witnesses.

My first question is to Mr. Goldblatt. I had the pleasure of speaking to some of your colleagues before this meeting, and we focused in particular on the cooperative investment plan. I've heard many times that the agricultural sector is in great difficulty nowadays. I'd like to know whether you think this plan would be of specific help to farmers and whether it is a better way of helping farmers than other possible mechanisms, because I think the problems of our agricultural sector today are certainly a high priority.

[Mark Goldblatt]

It's the right question and a good question, but the problem I have in directly answering the question is that if you look at my specific background, I don't have an agricultural co-op background. As you know, there are many agricultural co-ops across the country. This recommendation to you about a co-op investment plan is certainly endorsed right across the board by agricultural cooperatives—small, medium, large—across the country.

It would certainly make a huge difference to the worker co-op sector, where I'm more directly involved, because capitalization for our types of work as co-ops is a really huge issue. We absolutely feel the members must put in their own equity—absolutely; it's a requirement of a successful worker cooperative. But you're still left with the other part of the financing package that goes over and above what the worker co-op members can afford by way of equity.

I'm not answering your real question, because you asked me about agricultural co-ops.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Perhaps I could ask Mr. Rouleau the same question, since I know this initiative has been in place in Quebec since 1985.

Can you explain to us how this suggestion would greatly assist farmers?

[Michel Rouleau]

Certainly. Your first question had to do with agricultural cooperatives, also known as work cooperatives and farm cooperatives. Why is that? Because cooperative members, the workers and the producers themselves, can actually invest in the cooperatives. In Quebec, farmers, workers and cooperative members have invested $200 million to provide enough capital to allow for the growth and sustained development of the cooperative system.

In order to develop, a cooperative relies solely on surplus funds, a critical element of the capitalization process. So then, this is a very interesting tool, as witnessed by Quebec's success over the past 20 years. This initiative has had a very positive effect and has been a major source of capital.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Thank you very much.

My next question is directed to Mr. Séguin.

I believe Canada's museums were recently the victims of some mean-spirited cuts by the government, and you perhaps were too polite to mention those. What has been the impact of these cuts on Ontario's museums?

[Gilles Séguin]

There is no doubt that the cuts to the museum assistance program will have an impact on museums all across Canada, because that $9 million envelope--which was the amount until the current cuts--serves a wide range of small and medium-sized museums across Canada, but at this point we're still in the dark. It's been several weeks since it was announced, but there's been no official word from the Department of Canadian Heritage as to how these cuts will be applied and what will be impacted.

I heard the minister here say that the $2.5 million in cuts is from an administrative component of that $9 million, but I would be very surprised if a $9 million grant program has an overhead of $2.5 million.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

So you're totally in the dark now in terms of what these cuts will do and who will bear their cost.