Good afternoon. It's a great pleasure to be here. Unlike many of you, this is our first time making a presentation to this committee.
I'm here today to urge you to introduce a federal income tax credit program for heritage building owners, to assist with the preservation of our heritage stock. Over 25 years ago such a program was introduced by the Reagan government in the U.S., and at that time Heritage Canada took up the call to have the federal government introduce such a program. Nothing has happened to date, and I'm looking at why it would be a good time to do it now.
First of all, we have the example of the U.S. over 25 years. That should be enough proof that this kind of program works. Secondly, the federal government recently introduced a program to assist homeowners with renovations by receiving tax incentives or a reduction in taxes to do so, and we keep hearing how successful this program is.
Why is it even more urgent today than 25 years ago to have such a program? First of all, the stock of heritage buildings is diminishing. It's just incredible how they are being torn down and lost forever. Sustainability has also become a big issue. We didn't hear about that 25 years ago, but it definitely is not sustainable to put a heritage building into landfill, so that's another good reason. Costs have gone up, and it's clear that it's very difficult for many owners to actually restore their heritage buildings without some incentive. It is of benefit to everyone when this happens, not just to the owner.
Looking at the next question on whether incentives actually work, we have the example of the U.S. government, and in our brief we've outlined how successful that has been. We also have a local example of Gastown in Vancouver. It became a historic area in the 1970s. Not much happened in the way of restoring the buildings until about 2002, when the city introduced a whole package of incentives to financially assist people with the restorations. There has been a lot of uptake on this program, and there is a huge multiplier effect for what the city put in and what the private sector put in. Gastown is now well on its way to becoming a very attractive tourist destination.
Then I look at why the federal government should get involved and not just the cities. First, it's too much for cities to take on this kind of massive program. The federal government introduced the historic places initiative in 2002 and showed great leadership in doing this. The intention was for incentives to be part of this initiative. So the federal government can continue and increase their leadership by finishing this program.
What are the payoffs from such a program? First we need to look at preserving our heritage for future generations, and of course that's the main reason why we'd want to do this. There are the economic benefits--the benefits of tourism that I already mentioned. There's the multiplier effect. We know that when governments put money into this type of program the private sector will put double, triple, or ten times more money into programs such as this.
There's the sustainability that I mentioned. We don't want to have landfills with old buildings crumbling away. There's also the economic stimulation for the building sector and all of the trades involved with this.
I'm finished.