Finance Committee on Oct. 23rd, 2006

[Ken Birmingham]

This is most definitely something that will be distasteful to people in Ontario, and you can appreciate how distasteful the current tax structure is to people in Newfoundland and Labrador. If we look at the cost of delivering services and at the fact that there is a cost, for example, to deliver services in rural Newfoundland, it costs money to do it. If we look at what is generally a small population, in a province like Newfoundland and Labrador, we have to either go with a resettlement program to move them all to the bigger cities, or acknowledge up front that there is an enhanced cost to deliver those services outside of the major centres.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

Mr. Dykstra.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm going to jump right at this. We sure don't get much time to ask questions; we try to get as much as we can out of it.

One of the points Mr. McCallum made was in reference to comments Mr. Ignatieff has made. One of the concerns in Ontario that a lot of us have had, in the province I've lived in my whole life, is the impact the separation or the sovereignty of Quebec would have on the eastern provinces. This week-end he was certainly talking a lot about nation building in Quebec, and from an economic perspective.

Could each of you give us a perspective on what type of impact that would have on the east, especially here in Newfoundland?

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

Who would like to take that question on?

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Mark King]

I would say that national unity is important for the entire country, not just the eastern part.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

Continue, Mr. Dykstra.

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

Anyone else? Dr. Jong.

[Dr. Michael Jong]

From a health perspective, we learn a lot from each other. Quebec has nice models, too, for health care services and has done a lot for the rural population as well. Surely we all need to share our best practices and we can learn from each other. We can do a lot better together. It doesn't mean we don't recognize individual needs, just that we recognize the needs of urban centres and the needs of rural centres. We are different and we have to address that separately.

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

I appreciate that you costed out a number of your report's recommendations. We haven't had a lot of that, and it's difficult to get that from folks when they make presentations, and so it's appreciated.

Mr. Paul, I appreciated your comments as well with respect to the focus you have with a working relationship and making it stronger. I have a couple of things on the $9.1 billion in each year to fund programs directed to the aboriginal people in our country. Over the last five years, spending has grown by 4.3%, or $350 million a year. This budget provided for $450 million in housing, education, water treatment, and an off-reserve aboriginal housing allocation of $300 million. Obviously, over the last number of years, investments have been made, and particularly this year, significantly.

It doesn't seem that funding is necessarily the issue; it's the relationship you talked about. I wonder if you could comment on that.

[John Paul]

It comes down to a fundamental change in how to look at it in terms of where we're going. Our focus is primarily in terms of our rights and our people in creating a future that's viable and not based on a model of poverty. What we're saying is, make the right strategic investments in our communities to move them forward for the long run in terms of when we talk about the investments, where we're going, and make those kinds of investments to fundamentally change the outlook in our communities.

The current framework was built in the past and has been frozen for a number of years in terms of growth. It hasn't kept pace with the growing population in our communities. Communities have had to make more and more trade-offs in terms of what they're doing, and increasingly they're beginning to get more involved in economic development and entrepreneurship to work their way out of poverty. More and more communities, like the ones I mentioned, are really focusing on that.

As you said, there needs to be more federal support of directed activity supporting us to help rebuild our economies.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

Mr. Dykstra, your round is done.

Mr. Paul, I have one follow-up question. You spoke about the importance of rights. One of the rights issues that have concerned me for a long time is the absence of matrimonial property rights in most of Canada's first nations communities. I am a long-time advocate of the establishment of such a format. Does your organization have a position on the issue of matrimonial property rights in terms of their establishment and relevance to first nations communities?

[John Paul]

You can look at the examples in our communities over the last decade. In most of our communities, the issue of matrimonial property is dealt with through the provincial courts in some cases, and whatever the court has said, in a lot of cases, is what the community does.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

Using the already established provincial—

[John Paul]

A lot of communities use the provincial system, but we're also in the process of garnering input from our people in the community over the next couple of months to articulate some of the best ways to handle this for the long term, in dealing with fundamental issues relating to housing, poverty, and as you've said, equality of our people, all our people, including all the women from our communities.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

We'll continue with Mr. Savage.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Rowe, are you familiar with the work of Ron Coleman?

[Penelope Rowe]

I am indeed: the genuine progress indicators. Yes, I know him well.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Yes, GPI, and he does a tremendous job. In short, he thinks that GDP is not the only way you measure the greatness of a nation, but you bring in other things, such as the environment, and he does a lot of work on volunteerism.

One of the things indicated is that volunteerism in Canada has been kind of going down, as people have busier and busier lives. But in Atlantic Canada, I think the percentage of volunteerism is higher than in other parts of the country.

[Penelope Rowe]

No, not necessarily, but I think the percentage differences are fairly small.

When we talk about the voluntary sector, I'm not just referring to volunteers, I'm talking about everything: the goods, services, what we produce, what we purchase, and the people who work in the sector. As I said, we are a big industry; we employ at least 10% of the employed people in Canada.

But there's still this notion that whenever we make a contribution of government money to the non-profit sector, it's a drain, a handout. We don't see it as an investment that reaps extraordinary rewards. Every time you support a local organization in some small way, you're doing exactly what Dr. Coleman suggests: you're building a level of social capital, you're enabling people to enter the workforce in a different way than they might have opportunities to do otherwise, and you're supporting a huge return on investment in terms of building skills and engagements.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Absolutely.

[Penelope Rowe]

In fact, a few years ago the federal government started to look at this kind of indicator, but I think it's fallen off the cliff. Maybe we could encourage the federal government to really start putting more resources into understanding these things. There's very little research and development going on around innovation in the non-profit sector.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

I think the work Ron Coleman has done is good and needs to get some light at the national level to talk about actually putting in some measurable criteria.

Dr. Rourke and Dr. Jong, one of the cases I've come across in my office is that of two young women who came to see me, and both went to medical school. They are from a small community outside of Amherst, Nova Scotia, and they wanted so much their whole lives to go back and be rural physicians in the community they grew up in. They got into medical school with that goal, piled up a bunch of debt, and determined that the only way they could pay it off was to then specialize—which meant they'd be in the city instead of going back to the community.

Is that something you've heard about before?

[Dr. James Rourke]

That's a very common problem. Medical education and tuition fees have gone up across the country. It's a bigger problem, particularly for people in rural areas. If you come from Goose Bay and go to university, you then have to pay additional costs compared to somebody who lives in a larger university city. So before rural kids get into medical school, they've run up significant debt. Then when they get into medical school, it becomes even higher. We know well that rural and family physicians are at the lower end of the pay scale. So if you've run up a big debt because of your rural background, you're more likely to choose a higher-paying speciality.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Okay. Thank you very much.

To the board of trade folks, I assume from your presentation that you'd be in favour of your premier's claim and insistence that no province should be hurt by any equalization changes—