Finance Committee on Oct. 26th, 2006

[A voice]

Take it personally.

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

I'll take your personal view.

[John Beaucage]

Taxation shouldn't really bother our communities that much in that we're paying taxes through the treaties and the sharing of the land. We would like the treaties to be followed; then we would be very well off.

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

Thank you.

[Dr. Rick Miner]

Redistribution first, tax cut second.

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

Thank you.

[John Stapleton]

No, that money should go into income security programs.

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

Thank you very much.

Let me first say to Mr. Davis that our Liberal team here is 100% in agreement with you on the GST in schools, and we will try to convince our tight-fisted Conservative friends to agree with us on this.

I'd also like to turn to social housing, and I agree with your positions on homelessness and social housing. Unfortunately, I wouldn't be too optimistic, because if you read the budget, the government explicitly singles out housing and homelessness as areas of provincial jurisdiction and not appropriate for a federal role, not to mention the finance minister being on record as wanting to make homelessness illegal, as his solution to the problem.

My question to one of you, on the housing front, is—

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

Thanks very much, Mr. McCallum.

Order, please. Same respect over there that you expect when you're asking a question would be nice to remember.

Madam Ablonczy, over to you for five minutes.

[Diane Ablonczy, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I really appreciate all the presentations and the caring and the thought that went into them.

I'd like to start with Seneca College. You made a couple of very interesting suggestions. One was to develop a national credentials framework and one was to support the internationalization of Canadian higher education. Can you very briefly expand on those two for me?

[Dr. Rick Miner]

Certainly, we have a huge issue in Canada in terms of an individual's mobility across the country and credential recognition. It is an inhibiting factor I think in our productivity. This is particularly evident with--

[Diane Ablonczy, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Who isn't recognizing credentials?

[Dr. Rick Miner]

There are associations and universities that deal with transfer credits and credentials, and it's not always apparent that there's reciprocity and that people can move, have them recognized, and get to work.

The international area is an absolutely huge area where Australia and New Zealand and Britain have been very aggressive. It has not only been a significant advantage in trade, but it has provided revenue for post-secondary institutions that--

[Diane Ablonczy, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

What is that exactly?

[Dr. Rick Miner]

It's actually providing Canadian education in an international venue, either physically, by setting up campuses elsewhere, or by encouraging visa students.

[Diane Ablonczy, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Okay. Those are good thoughts, and there are many others.

This is for the school board. I'm sorry you had a terrible night, but sometimes it's good to be crabby; you make your point more strongly.

I imagine that this isn't the first time you've brought this issue up. I'm new on the committee; others are new on the committee. What push-back have you gotten? It almost seems like a no-brainer, but what are the arguments against?

[Bruce Davis]

It's a slam dunk. Just to be clear, since 1991, school boards have been paying GST. That's a lot of GST. The Canadian School Boards Association has been fighting this for a long time, and I have reams of their submissions to standing committees on this issue, going back several years.

[Diane Ablonczy, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

But what are the arguments you get against it?

[Bruce Davis]

The province will claw the money back. My answer to that is that actually they haven't clawed it back. The 1% you've given us, they have not clawed back. I get the argument that it's an exclusive area of provincial jurisdiction, that K to 12 is a provincial jurisdiction. So I say, “Okay, that's great. Then, why are you taxing it? If you're going to use that argument, it makes no sense at all.” I get a few little arguments, such as if we give you the money, how do we know it will be used for things for children? Well, if you sat through our meeting last night, we agonized over programs, music programs. We will spend the money wisely to the best of our ability.

So I get push-back on some political questions.

[Diane Ablonczy, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

That helps me understand a bit more, and I appreciate that. And good luck. I think you're finding some sympathy here, at least.

[Bruce Davis]

It is a no-brainer.

[Diane Ablonczy, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Speaking for the Toronto Board of Trade, Mr. Bradley, you talked about looking to the federal government to ensure a bigger share of the fiscal pie for cities. And we've heard that from other submissions. The problem is, of course, that municipalities are creatures of the province. They are formed under provincial legislation. How can you justify the federal government sticking its nose into this arrangement, so to speak, with the provincial governments and sort of going over them to fund municipalities? I think that's a key jurisdictional issue. Maybe you've thought about that and have some answers.

[Cecil Bradley]

Yes, there can be a jurisdictional problem. But I think it's worth looking back over Canadian intergovernmental relations for the last couple of generations. I think the federal government has been able to be active on files that are critically important or disproportionately important to cities, without getting into jurisdictional wrangles.

[Diane Ablonczy, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Can you give a quick example?

[Cecil Bradley]

For example, there is immigration settlement. To the extent that the federal government shoulders the burden, some or all of it, for immigrant settlement, it can be a real help to cities.