Finance Committee on Feb. 27th, 2008

[Marc-André Roche]

No.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

I've been there.

In your vision of a designated area, could it be an area that is desperate for skilled employees, but is still doing well? If it's good enough for a student from another part of Canada, whom Canadian taxpayers are paying for, should we be giving that tax break to somebody who goes to an area that's actually doing well but is still desperate for skilled labour?

[Robert Bouchard, Bloc, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

In my view, that is a problem of a different kind. There's a job shortage in our area. Moreover, young people want to come back to their own regions, and we want them back as well. We also want the exodus of older and young people to stop. We want to give those regions an opportunity to develop, because there is negative growth in areas with economic problems.

You are talking about a problem of a different kind, not an economic problem. The purpose of the bill is to provide assistance in regions that are experiencing economic difficulty.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

I disagree with you.

I would like you to answer this. For example, the bill shows that you leave school, you're there for the first.... Is it 24 months or 12 months that you're there? I can't remember off the top of my head. Is it one year?

So you're eligible for the first year you're there. Is that correct?

[Robert Bouchard, Bloc, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

In the two years after obtaining his degree, he could receive that assistance.

Let me give you another example. I know a guy who completed his studies. He had completed his nursing degree, then did a masters in public administration and came back to work in Chicoutimi, in my region, in my riding, to take up a position as supervisor for a number of nurses. He got the tax credit. Those are concrete measures.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Yes, in your bill it's for one year. It's for one year, though. You're qualified for one year. You work a year, and you qualify in that tax year. Is that not correct?

[Robert Bouchard, Bloc, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

The amendment we have put forward proposes a cap of $8,000 and a maximum of $3,000 a year. It could be spread over three or four years, or more, but the maximum would remain $8,000 for the period, and $3,000 for each individual year.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

But based on the numbers, if you make a decent living, let's say $50,000—I don't know if a new graduate would make that, but let's say it's that much—how quickly do you eat up that $8,000 eligibility?

[Robert Bouchard, Bloc, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

It would be three years.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

It would be three years.

Once the person is there a couple of years, for two or three years, and takes advantage of the tax credit, there's nothing stopping that young person—who, in my view, at 25 or 26 years old is still pretty young—from moving from that region. There's no long-term guarantee that they will be there. Is that not correct?

[Robert Bouchard, Bloc, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

The first program instituted by the Government of Quebec was for $8,000 in a single year. It was a refundable tax credit. The government tabled an amendment to allow for some withholding, so that young people would have a better opportunity to live in a designated region. This is why it's spread over several years now. However, I think that someone who lives in a given region for a number of years, buys a house there, forges some links and makes friends has a much greater chance of staying there over the longer term.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Thank you very much. That time has gone.

Now we'll go to Mr. Martin. The floor is yours for seven minutes, please.

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Thank you very much, Chair.

I actually think this is a concept worth exploring. I think it needs to be developed further and put into some further context.

Certainly areas like northern Ontario suffer. We've lost a lot of young people over the last ten years or more as the economy has struggled to stay vibrant and vital. I'm sure it's the same across the country. Those of us who have been given responsibility for leadership in that area look at ways that all of us--and government is the vehicle that we use most often to assist--can somehow put in place those incentives and supports that will encourage our young people to come back once they've been trained or if they have a certain skill set.

I know that the mining industry in northern Ontario is doing really well right now, but they're having a hard time getting miners to come and fulfill the potential that's there for that. I know that when I sit at committees and I listen to the members of the government, and particularly those who come from western Canada, they talk about the oil sands or the tar sands. Which one did we decide was correct? Tar sands?

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Oil sands.

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Anyway, there's a lack of skilled workers out there.

Actually, probably the simplest answer would be if employers would simply pay decent wages and provide decent benefit packages and make it worth a person's time to come back and to work, they would probably come readily. But that not being the case in most instances, we need to find other ways.

I guess I would like to ask you, in putting this forward, how much work you did in trying to define specifically what areas would be targeted and who would ultimately decide which areas. How would we determine that?

[Robert Bouchard, Bloc, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

It would be up to the governor in council, after consultation with the provinces, to recognize that a given region within a given province is having economic difficulties. It would need to consult the provinces and territories to determine which regions would be designated in individual provinces.

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Is this how it was done in Quebec, in the Quebec experience?

[Robert Bouchard, Bloc, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

I can't say exactly what the process was in Quebec but I do know that population decline was a major factor. All areas with negative demographic growth met that criterion. That was the most important criterion, even if there were others. The point was to determine whether, as of the 2001 census, the decline in population had caused difficulties, and resulted in a situation that warranted remedial measures.

My colleague has some comments to add.

[Marc-André Roche]

The most remote regions are those losing the most people. Often, they are single-industry regions, and depend on one industry alone. Often, in the traditional economic base of those regions, there is little room for skilled jobs. We can see that with the forestry crisis; we see regions that depend on a single industry, particularly a cyclical industry, with an economy that relentlessly goes up and down. The government has said that efforts had to be made to develop new businesses in other areas in an attempt to diversify the economy of those regions. Unfortunately, however, those regions don't have the manpower to foster the establishment of new businesses in new areas.

The Government of Quebec has studied the regions that depend on a single industry, where young people leave and where unemployment is high, and has established those three criteria. It considered six administrative regions, along with a number of regional county municipalities—I don't know whether RCMs exist outside Quebec—included in some of the administrative regions, such as Mauricie, Mr. Laforest's region, which is not a designated region. But inside the Mauricie region, some RCMs, like the RCM of Mékinak, which is further north, are designated because they are single-industry regions. Mékinak's economy has declined, its population has declined, and its economy needs to be diversified.

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

If I can try to then have you help me understand, maybe, a bit further, what you're saying is that the government itself would have a responsibility to decide which region needed to be designated. And those regions might change from time to time due to circumstances. So they would have to put in place some measuring sticks or some statistical vehicle to do that.

From the work I've done--I've been in public life now since 1990, first in Ontario and now in Ottawa--I've seen governments do that. I sat on the human resource committee in the last Parliament, where, unanimously, every--

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Go very quickly. Your time has actually gone already. If you have a quick question, I'll allow it, but if not, we'll move on.

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

No, I guess that's all I had to say.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Thank you very much.

We'll go to Monsieur Pacetti.

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Welcome to the committee, Robert, and congratulations on your bill. It's already quite an achievement to have brought it to this stage. I have two brief questions—private members' bills always pose a challenge because they are not always well drafted and do not receive all the support required—and those are the details that are lacking.

If we want to compare this bill with Quebec's, are there any statistics from Quebec? Do we know how many people have used the program, and when it was instituted?

[Robert Bouchard, Bloc, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

In 2006, some 10,000 people qualified. We believe that, in Canada, about 30,000 young graduates could use the program.