Finance Committee on Sept. 29th, 2009

[Chief Rose Laboucan]

At the start of this year I had a young child with special needs. Last year the parents moved away so that child could access special needs resources at a special school. They've moved back to the community because that's where their family is, and now that child is suffering because I can't afford to get a special one-on-one teacher's aide for that child to accommodate his school year. That's how bad it is.

[Jean-Yves Laforest, Bloc, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

You have 30 seconds remaining.

[Jean-Yves Laforest, Bloc, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

I will be brief.

Mr. Bousquet, you state that in order for you to remain competitive, there must be more tax credits. Yet, the mining industry is already competitive. Compared to other industries, it is in relatively good health.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

A very brief answer, sir.

[Philip Bousquet]

It's competitive in the respect that we are competing for investor dollars going anywhere around the world. We are a competitive industry; keep the costs low. As Eira Thomas mentioned, we have good geology, but in a period where investor confidence is low, we need additional incentives to ensure that investors are considering mineral exploration.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you.

We'll go to Mr. Cannan, please.

[Ron Cannan, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It's a pleasure to be back here. I was born and raised in Edmonton and moved to Kelowna 20 years ago, where I've had the honour of being the member of Parliament for the last three and a half years. It's a pleasure to be back.

Interestingly for Mr. McCallum, I thought the Liberals were an endangered species here in Edmonton, but I guess he found one. So I'm glad he found a friend—friendly Edmontonians.

I appreciate all your comments. Maybe I'll just go around the table, because we don't have much time.

To the Prospectors and Developers Association, we had a presentation yesterday from the Association for Mineral Exploration British Columbia with a similar request for the mineral exploration tax credit, so I'm well aware of that, and some of my local constituents keep reminding me as well when you have your annual conference in Toronto. Hopefully that will be able to continue, as I know it's a valuable asset for your industry.

Ms. Ward, I really appreciate your comments. As a father of three adult children now and grandfather of a two-and-a-half-year-old, I appreciate your Kids First Parents Association of Canada presentation. In regard to a couple of your recommendations, could you comment, first of all, on the universal child care program and the benefits you've seen from some of your members? Also, on your third recommendation, I think it's a creative concept, but do you have any idea of the cost and how it would be implemented?

[Helen Ward]

The universal child care benefit benefits me. I'm a low-income single mother. I don't pay taxes on it. Most single mothers don't earn enough income to pay taxes on it, so we get the full $100. Families with higher incomes pay some tax on that.

I've heard positive things. Certainly $100 a month isn't going to pay for everything, or pay for a day care centre, or pay all the costs that we undergo as parents who forgo income to look after their own children, or opportunity costs, but this amount is significant. Some people think it's a token gesture. Well, a token gesture is better than a kick in the face.

On transferring funding to families that is currently going to non-families, to researchers, to lobbyists, to day care centres and the people who build them, and all the rest of it, there are so many different programs that fund anything but families. You have researchers earning $70,000 or more in researching poverty and families. They're studying low-income families on welfare who have been kicked off welfare, but there is a gross injustice there when we have people who are being funded so much to do anything. It's not actually to look after children, and we want to see the money going to children.

To create real equality for women, you would have to fund the care, the work of child-bearing and child-rearing--it's work--on an equitable level with all other socially essential work. Through our tax dollars, we pay people to plant flowers in our parks, to build our streets, to research things in university, to teach our kids, and all these things. In the past, those things were not funded by tax dollars, so the family as a sector is being underfunded while the other sectors have grown in their prestige, in their money, and in their power.

It's very difficult to even be here. I have a child under two years old who came here with me on the plane from Vancouver. Parents are marginalized politically as parents. If you speak as an educator or a researcher, you have more clout, more power, and more money. We would like to see parents and the family sector being funded on an equitable basis for the valuable work we do.

[Ron Cannan, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Thank you very much. I wish you continued success in your work.

[Helen Ward]

Thank you.

[Ron Cannan, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

I'll move around the table as there's limited time.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

You have one minute, Mr. Cannan.

[Ron Cannan, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

To the Chamber of Commerce, I commend your efforts. We did reduce the GST from 7% to 5% and I know that's been very helpful in the housing industry. Many Albertans have come out and bought homes in the Okanagan, so we're thankful for that as well. It's still a continued growth industry and a big employer for our community.

For the agricultural community and my colleague Sheri beside me, what is the annual contribution of R and D right now or for research? You're asking for $28 million over 10 years or $280 million. What's the annual contribution right now?

[Sheri Strydhorst]

Annually right now I believe it is $280 million today, what is being spent, so a 10% increase....

[Ron Cannan, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

In one of your recommendations I think the idea is to reward, as my colleague across the way mentioned, someone who is promoting sustainable food production. How would you monitor or measure someone using a green sustainable measure? How would that reduce their insurance premiums? How would you use that as a benchmark?

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Very briefly, please.

[Sheri Strydhorst]

How would we use...?

[Ron Cannan, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

How would you measure that?

[Sheri Strydhorst]

I guess we would measure it in terms of doing life cycle analyses to measure what are the improvements in water use and what are the reductions in soil losses and so forth, so it's measuring the sustainable metrics that these new technologies implement.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you, Mr. Cannan.

We're going to Mr. Pacetti or Mr. McCallum.

Mr. McCallum.

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

We'll share our time.

Mr. Dechert asked the business people if they'd like it if the accelerated capital cost allowance could be applied to every kind of equipment, and of course they answered yes. So while we're at it, why don't we have a 100% accelerated capital cost allowance applied to every kind of equipment? I suspect they'd say yes again.

My point is that you have to keep your eye on fiscal responsibility. A year ago, the government said we'd have nothing but surpluses forever. Then it was a $34 billion deficit. Then it was a $50 billion deficit. Now it's a $56 billion deficit. Such a blanket application of accelerated capital cost allowance would cost a fortune, raise the deficit, and increase the burden on our children and grandchildren, so it's entirely irresponsible.

I have one question to Mr. Kaumeyer. In a fiscally responsible way.... Of course, you'd like everything, but if there were to be one kind of expansion that's not huge, not costing tens of billions of dollars, what single measure would you urge the government to adopt?

[Lawrence Kaumeyer]

The single measure I would look at, honourable member, is that the restrictions are too tight relative to most construction equipment--excavators, yellow iron. Most of the things that are carried on that have been a substantial stimulus for the government recently have been in the heavy equipment and construction industry. That's the area where there is very limited application. It's far too narrow.

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

Thank you.

Now I will pass it over to my colleague.

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

At the end of the last session, Mr. Kaumeyer, we were talking a little bit about IRAP and R and D. Should we be making the R and D refundable? Some companies are not taking advantage of it.

I guess that would be more for Mr. Lennox or even Mr. Kolby on the bigger companies that are not getting all their R and D numbers back, all their R and D credits. Have you heard anything on that?