Ms. Harney.
Evidence of meeting #43 for Finance in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was federal.
Evidence of meeting #43 for Finance in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was federal.
1:25 p.m.
Representative, Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada
I didn't want to postpone my chance to reply; I just wasn't sure about the process you were using. If I could take two minutes, I want to ask Paul if he would reply to your question. Would that be all right?
1:25 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Rajotte
Mr. McCallum is out of time, but you can have 30 seconds maximum.
September 28th, 2009 / 1:25 p.m.
Human Early Learning Partnership, University of British Columbia
The long and short of it is that child care services would pay for themselves over time. It's true that in the first three electoral cycles you wouldn't see more than 33% to 48% back, but over time it would remedy in part this massive brain drain we're permitting. That would pay for itself with dividends over the medium term.
1:25 p.m.
Conservative
1:25 p.m.
Bloc
Jean-Yves Laforest Bloc Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC
Good afternoon to all the witnesses.
I am very pleased to be here with you in Vancouver to consider your main concerns along with the other committee members.
Since this morning, several speakers have made recommendations to improve childcare services in order to improve the situation of children and reduce the poverty they face.
Ms. Khazaie, Ms. Harney and Mr. Kershaw, you all made similar recommendations, which means that this is certainly a critical issue that deserves further consideration.
I heard Ms. Harney say that she hoped that the Standing Committee on Finance would really hear her recommendations and make them a priority. A little earlier, Mr. McCallum was explaining where things stood. He said that he had not been able to convince the government and talked about the associated costs. I also heard Mr. Kershaw's response to that.
I think it is high time that society, be it in Quebec or in Canada.... As was mentioned this morning, Quebec is quite far ahead in terms of daycare services. There are costs, yes, but they must be seen first and foremost as investments. Children are our most valuable natural resource, both in Quebec and in the rest of Canada.
We talked about the vulnerability of children, which has its own costs. We said that a daycare system would significantly reduce the costs associated with that vulnerability.
I speak from experience. For 30 years, I worked with children who were vulnerable and who had many developmental difficulties. Based on my own experience, I can assure you that we can make great strides with respect to learning, which would significantly help families.
I urge you to continue to hammer home this message regarding early childhood services. I hope that it will be heard, even if you have to repeat it nearly 26 times before it comes through loud and clear. I wish you well on that mission. It is essential to continue, because I think that is really where the future lies.
We are talking about investments. So we should not look at it in terms of immediate costs. We have to remember that our future will depend on what we have done for our children. That is vital, and there are many of you making that point. I encourage you to continue.
There are all kinds of ways to find money. Mr. Mowatt, you suggested a number of things that could help improve the various services including daycare service—even though this suggestion may not be yours. I think that some of your suggestions could help the government improve how it manages and takes in money.
The Bloc Québécois has already put forward some very specific measures. It has already made certain recommendations to the government, which are still valid. We mentioned that if the government committed to not staffing one in three positions in the federal public service, it would save several billion dollars, which could be used to provide services like the early childhood services we hope to implement Canada-wide, while increasing transfers.
In my opinion, it is very important to do it by increasing transfer payments, because this is under provincial jurisdiction. Quebec did it without waiting for any such payments, but it is important to establish these services through actual transfer payments. It is also important that the federal government not get involved in provincial matters, especially early childhood services.
I would like to hear your thoughts on that, ladies and gentlemen.
1:30 p.m.
Representative, Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada
I'm not an economist, but I know that Canada spends money, and we find money to spend on things that we think are important. So whether the money comes from a reduction at a bureaucratic level or wherever, we need to make this investment now.
1:30 p.m.
Bloc
Jean-Yves Laforest Bloc Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC
Mr. Mowatt, you nodded your head when I said that the Bloc Québécois had already suggested reducing the size of the public service. This reduction would be pain-free because it would only affect positions where people were retiring or leaving their job; these positions would just not be filled again.
1:30 p.m.
As an Individual
Thank you.
I totally agree with your statements. I was a public sector worker for over 30 years. If there's a way of wasting money, government infrastructure is the way to do it. I can't agree with you more on the billions of dollars that government is presently putting into infrastructure. What better infrastructure could there be than child care instead of the billions of dollars being spent on roads and various other projects, even in my own municipality? It makes no sense.
You might be interested in the radio program I was listening to on the way to this meeting, where people were saying that the Bloc should be running people for election in other provinces across Canada because your party does have some very good ideas that do have effect across Canada.
1:30 p.m.
Conservative
1:30 p.m.
Bloc
1:30 p.m.
Conservative
1:30 p.m.
Conservative
Bob Dechert Conservative Mississauga—Erindale, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your presentations.
My first question is for the Association for Mineral Exploration British Columbia, and Mr. Giraud.
One of your suggestions was that the government work to harmonize environmental assessment processes across the country between the federal and provincial governments. It sounds like a good idea to me. How do we go about doing that? What would you suggest?
1:35 p.m.
Senior Director, Policy and Communications, Association for Mineral Exploration British Columbia
Thanks, Mr. Dechert.
Yes, the devil is in the details.
The federal government, current and previous governments, have signed harmonization agreements with most of the provinces to try to make these regulations a little more streamlined.
There's a simple thing that could be done, frankly. In British Columbia we have legislated timelines in our environmental assessment process; things have to be done by a certain time. There are opportunities and options to halt the clock, to pull the process back, but generally there is a legislated timeline; you must get through the process by this date.
The federal government, under the current CEA regime, has no timelines associated with it. We think this would be a simple thing. I know CEA is up for review in 2010 and it should be considered.
We're not talking about taking the federal government's statutory authority away. We're not talking about getting the federal government out of this business. What we're talking about is recognizing that a biologist is a biologist is a biologist. For a geologist, an expert on explosives in federal jurisdiction, these processes do not have to be duplicated at every level.
And some of that comes from the federal government simply saying, we recognize the work you've done as a province.
1:35 p.m.
Conservative
Bob Dechert Conservative Mississauga—Erindale, ON
Thanks very much.
I assume you'd agree that the federal support for the power line you mentioned earlier as an example of nation building is a good use of money—and perhaps Mr. Mowatt would agree with that as well.
If you wouldn't mind, for a moment, since we've come all this way, tell us how your industry is doing now during the global recession. How has it been impacted in the last year or two, and how does it compare with our competitors in other countries?
1:35 p.m.
Senior Director, Policy and Communications, Association for Mineral Exploration British Columbia
British Columbia has been doing relatively well, like many parts of the world, from the commodity boom we experienced up until last year. There has been a setback; you'll see it around the world. But compared with other natural resource sectors, such as forestry, which was already having difficulties before the recession, and certainly compared with the declines we've seen in the gas and oil sector, our sector isn't doing quite as badly.
Now, we are seeing an impact, layoffs and other challenges, but we think we are probably in a better position because of demand in the Asian economies that's helping the British Columbia and Canadian economies come out of this faster. I think that's why it's important to pay attention to our sector, because we are probably one of the ones that can lead us out of this.
As Gavin said earlier, the $500 million we pay in taxes per year in this province could probably be doubled if we adopted some of these recommendations. And that goes to pay for everything else being asked for here today.
1:35 p.m.
Conservative
Bob Dechert Conservative Mississauga—Erindale, ON
Do you expect the infrastructure funding going on in various projects across the country will have a beneficial impact on your industry?
1:35 p.m.
Senior Director, Policy and Communications, Association for Mineral Exploration British Columbia
Absolutely.
Nation building is a strange euphemism. We've tried to come up with a way of describing the difference between two equally important types of infrastructure. With a museum or a sewage system, the challenge with those things is that they have future operating costs for a government. Taxes have to pay for them as time goes on. You'll get the bulk, the burst of construction, but then you have to have tax revenue to pay for those things going forward.
The thing about something like a power line or a road or an airport is that at a certain point the revenue it generates will be self-sustaining. A power line, in the long term, does not require future government operating costs. It's a tax revenue creator. You create business along the line. Vancouver airport doesn't require operating moneys; it actually pays money to the federal government. That's the difference. You have to do both kinds of infrastructure, because you need to enable the private sector to generate these revenues.
1:35 p.m.
Conservative
Bob Dechert Conservative Mississauga—Erindale, ON
Thank you very much.
My next question is for Ms. Harney of the Child Care Advocacy Association.
I know you've advocated for a national child care program. I wasn't sure, though, if I heard you suggest what you thought the cost of that would be on an annual basis. I may have missed it.
1:35 p.m.
Representative, Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada
We're looking at some of the international benchmarks, so, for instance, right now Canada is spending less than 0.3%, and we're talking about beginning at 0.7% of GDP and moving up to 1%. A target could be achieved by—I'm just looking at my notes because the numbers in my head are not the easiest—increments of $1.5 billion annually.
It's not going to all happen in the first year, we understand that, and the system needs to grow. It will be a significant investment, as Paul said, but it does, I still say, pay for itself and beyond.
1:35 p.m.
Conservative
Bob Dechert Conservative Mississauga—Erindale, ON
Yes. I'm just trying to understand what the numbers are. I think one of the speakers this morning suggested the number $5 billion a year—
1:40 p.m.
Representative, Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada
Yes, $5 billion to $6 billion annually.
1:40 p.m.
Conservative
Bob Dechert Conservative Mississauga—Erindale, ON
That's the range. As you know, Mr. McCallum's party, when they were in government for 13 years, proposed a universal child care program—and Mr. Pacetti's party as well, as a matter of fact—but as we know, they never actually delivered on that.
Why do you think that is? Why wasn't it done in 13 years of continued—