Finance Committee on Sept. 28th, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Would you support the national Parliament Buildings being on the list, because some of them are falling apart, as we all know?

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Janet Leduc]

Well, I actually used to work for the National Capital Commission in Ottawa and am quite aware of the buildings there. I think there are only one or two stonemasons who are actually able to do some of the stonework. So I would certainly support the restoration, but I don't know how you'd give yourself a tax credit. But I'd encourage you to do the restoration work on the Parliament Buildings, yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Okay, I appreciate that. Thank you.

My time is up. Just as I restrict others' time, I'll restrict my own.

I'll go to Mr. Davies, please.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you to all of you for your thoughtful presentations today.

I'd like to start with Mr. Mass and Mr. Coward from the Pacific Community Resources Society. I'm familiar with your excellent and effective work with at-risk youth, particularly in linking them with employers in the private sector. I'm familiar with your program linking youth with Starbucks, and tragically I think that program in Vancouver came to a close due to lack of funding. It's been concentrated in Surrey.

I wonder if you could tell us what impact, if any, you've noticed it's had on at-risk youth in Vancouver.

[Ian Mass]

The program was essentially cut in half, as you say, and although supposedly it's for all of greater Vancouver, it cut the seats in half. Young people from Vancouver, at-risk young people, disadvantaged young people, aren't going to travel out to Surrey.

The program in Vancouver was housed in one of the integrated youth centres we have at Broadway and Fraser, and it worked very well because young people got to trust adults in that centre and were able to go into these kinds of programs and be successful, be placed, and have permanent jobs with Starbucks and/or go on to school.

The other impact is that many of the Vancouver youth were urban aboriginal youth, and many of the youth in Surrey are immigrant youth, so in fact it disenfranchised a large population of aboriginal youth here in urban Vancouver.

Many of these cutbacks were with other Skills Link programs, not just with ours, and a similar disenfranchisement happened.

[John Coward]

If I could add to that, what's interesting about this particular program model is that for every dollar the federal government puts into it, the private sector puts in another dollar. It's a no-brainer. What happens is they're both working together to give at-risk youth an opportunity, and this gives the private sector an opportunity to support its triple bottom line in the sense that they're able to make a contribution back to the community by giving these young people a chance, but they do it at a reduced cost than what normally would have been the case. Then on top of that they're giving these young people the best sets of skills.

Starbucks, for example, is one corporation. It's one of the 10 best corporations to work for, according to Forbes. So the question for me is, if the kinds of skills that Starbucks is able to pass on to its staff are passed on to at-risk youth, those at-risk youth will work anywhere because they have the best set of training one could possibly get. It's a fabulous opportunity for the government to show leadership in giving the private sector an opportunity to give these young people a chance.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

I have one more question and then I'll move on to someone else. You mentioned your budget has been capped for three years. I wonder what programs you can envision delivering if you had a significant increase in the amount of funds you had. Can you give us an example of an idea or two that you could implement were you to be given further resources instead of just working with a capped budget?

[John Coward]

The other interesting thing about the Skills Link program is that it's offered through communities right across the country, in small communities with small businesses. In terms of the opportunities to work, it's not just in construction, like much of the infrastructure dollars; it goes into working in the retail sector, working in logistics, working in warehouses, picking up skill sets of being able to operate in almost every type of sector of the Canadian economy. So it's not just one option for these young people; there are multiple sets of options for employment and career options.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you. I appreciate that.

I want to move to Mr. Humphreys. As I mentioned this morning, I think we New Democrats appreciate the critical importance of salmon to British Columbia, our economy, our communities, our culture.

I'm going to ask you this. The first thing is, I wonder if you have any comment on how we would manage those extra dollars that you have, because you've asked for an increased allotment of dollars, which I would support. Do you have any comment on the model of implementing from Ottawa versus having a B.C.-based monitoring process?

[Nicholas Humphreys]

I don't want to deny Ottawa the opportunity for jobs, but I think it's a well-known fact that with Fisheries and Oceans, I think one-third or one-half of the budget goes to Ottawa, and that's where one-half of the people are. I think, yes, a budget administered out here makes all kinds of sense for lots of reasons, if that's your question.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you.

Ms. Leduc, first I want to congratulate you on a passionate and well-ordered presentation. I think it's a wonderful idea for the tax credit program, and the same thing with Mr. Touchie. I think you've brought arts and heritage and culture into the economic question that we're facing here, and I wonder if you could just briefly comment on how you feel about the economic spinoffs of preserving and enhancing our culture.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

You have about one minute.

[Janet Leduc]

Certainly in the Gastown example there was a huge amount of economic spinoff. In terms of some of the buildings that have been restored, Water Street in Gastown was sort of souvenir shops. Now the second part of Water Street is becoming upscale furniture. Fluevog is in there. That's the economic spinoff, and obviously the private sector has invested heavily with a small number of incentives. There is the tourism factor, which will encourage more employment, obviously, and for young people it is a great place to get started in the tourism business.

There is lots of data out there to show that there are huge economic spinoffs from restoring heritage buildings and neighbourhoods as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Mr. Touchie, do you have a brief comment?

[Rodger Touchie]

Very quickly, I will just point out that the Conference Board in 2007 identified the economic footprint of cultural industries in Canada as over $86 billion. It represents 7.4% of the gross national product.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you, Mr. Davies.

We'll go to Mr. Pacetti, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for appearing. I've said this before: It's a challenge for us to ask questions of everybody. We are limited in our time.

I don't want to take too much time, but I do want to ask Mr. Devenish, with the RV dealers association, can the floor planners, the dealers, not come up with the 20% guarantee that the government or the financial institution is requesting?

[Shane Devenish]

Is that the actual dealers themselves?

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

Yes.

[Shane Devenish]

No. Their cashflow is tight at the best of times. They rely on bank credit.

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

In the past, I think Textron was their main provider of financing. Didn't it request any guarantees?

[Shane Devenish]

No. When you say guarantees, there were guarantees such as repurchase agreements from the manufacturers. There were no financial guarantees.

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

Again, can you not have your manufacturers help out with the 20%? It doesn't sound like 20% is exaggerated.

[Shane Devenish]

It's 10%. The lender in question would lend up to $200 million with a maximum of 10%, with which the lender is prepared to share the risk.