Finance Committee on Sept. 29th, 2009

[Vivian Manasc]

Yes, absolutely, Linda. We're certainly proposing heritage buildings as an important part of our infrastructure. In fact, I spoke at that Heritage Canada conference on that very subject.

I think it's extremely important that we look at heritage buildings, not just buildings that are over 100 years old but the modern heritage buildings. As you know, there is work being done both in Edmonton and across Canada on our modern heritage and on the re-skinning of buildings from the 1970s. They are perhaps not considered heritage buildings, but they need a new purpose, need to reduce their energy consumption, and need to extend their useful life.

I think there are a lot of opportunities in the world of existing buildings for dramatically reducing the carbon footprint, dramatically reducing energy consumption, and dramatically improving the quality of our urban environment through the re-purposing of buildings that we already have, both older and more contemporary buildings.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

I have a lot I could follow up with, but there are other questions I need to ask. If I have time left over, I'd like to get back to you.

Mr. Kolkman, I was delighted to hear that you and the United Way seem to be pretty well in sync on your presentations.

By the way, I commend the United Way. I think your entire proposal is fantastic. It's certainly in sync with what we've put forward, and I'll certainly be recommending it to the usual members of the committee.

Mr. Kolkman, you talked about anti-poverty measures as an investment. The United Way representative spoke about this. Would you like to elaborate on that a bit more?

[John Kolkman]

Yes, certainly.

I really think that particularly when we're investing in children we're investing in Canada's future. There has been some really good research done in recent years, basically demonstrating that by allowing child poverty to persist we're actually creating more social costs in the long run for society.

All of the research indicates that children living in poverty do less well in school, for example. There is lower educational attainment. Therefore, after they leave school, they earn lower incomes as adults, and that's a direct loss to government down the road in terms of tax revenue.

There are also extra costs from child poverty for the health care system, because their houses may not be as safe and kids end up in hospital more, for example, as do adults who grew up in poverty. There is also more involvement with the criminal justice system, and we all know how expensive incarcerating people can be. And then, while they're incarcerated, they're not paying any taxes either.

That's very much why I think we need to use the language of investment when talking about things like improvements to child tax benefits such as those being recommended this morning. It's going to benefit all of us in society in the long term.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Have I time for a quick question for the mayor?

It's delightful to see you. I really appreciate your presentation, Mayor Mandel, and certainly my party is in sync with what you're recommending. We have long felt the way to distribute the money is to municipalities.

One of the issues I haven't heard discussed today--and I welcome your input to this--is that one of the advantages, of course, of long-term, committed, stable funding is that you can actually create long-term, sustainable employment. I was wondering if you'd speak to that.

The second question is while I agree that municipalities themselves should decide what they should spend the money on in consultation with their taxpayers, how do we make sure we can also have policy-drivers? For example, how do we encourage municipalities to be spending money supposedly to the new green economy?

[Stephen Mandel]

I think I would take that a bit personally, that we're irresponsible and that we can't make decisions about how to spend money. I think we're pretty efficient, and we're right next door to the people, so as far as how we spend our money, I think we do it very well and very efficiently, number one.

Number two, any kind of long-term projects create a lot of jobs. As an example, the other day we were talking about transit, and I hope this is a correct statistic. I was told for every million dollars spent in transit, you create twenty-seven and a half jobs, and on the same thing for the oil industry it's a lot less. So investments in transit and in communities create a substantial number of jobs, and long-term jobs, which is important. But as far as spending money, I really think we're responsible. As these large cities are responsible orders of government, we have good leadership and good management. The process just needs to flow where we can deal with the money. We'll be glad to give you an accounting for it, although we're taking it out somewhere else, and then we can move forward. We need long-term sustainable funding.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Duncan.

We'll go to Mr. Pacetti, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses. As I've been saying, we've been going through this consultation process for a while, and it's difficult with panels of seven and eight groups trying to get questions in. So I'll try to do my best.

A quick question for Mr. Tait on the Hutterites. You are saying the income or taxable income that's paid to members less than 18 years of age is not being considered. We have young people who work all the time, whether it be at McDonald's or part-time jobs, and they get a T-4. What is the difference?

[Gordon Tait]

Just a point of clarification. The Hutterites are a unique culture, so they're members of their colony. They all take a vow of perpetual poverty, so there's a special section of the Income Tax Act that determines how the income of the congregation of the community is to be taxed. It does not allow a person under the age of 18 to file an income tax return as a member of a colony.

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

Because he or she has made a vow of poverty, is that it? Can you be excluded until you reach the age of 18?

[Gordon Tait]

You're excluded until you reach the age of 18 in this section of the Income Tax Act.

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

No, but I'm saying can a Hutterite not be part of the vow of poverty until he reaches 18, so he or she can file prior to the age of 18?

[Gordon Tait]

No, they cannot. That's been the subject of some discussion with the department. The department in fact confirmed that. Anyone under the age of 18 in the technical rules is deemed to be a member of the family who has taken a vow of poverty, so they're not allowed a distribution, even though they're actively participating. We would just like to see the rules on the restriction to the age of 18 be removed to allow the sharing and the recognition of their contribution.

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

Thank you.

A quick question to Ms. Lynch. In your brief—and correct me if I'm wrong—you're not asking for a specific dollar amount in terms of what we can do in terms of volunteers, because there are all kinds of estimates on how much volunteers actually.... The service the volunteers provide ranges from $30 billion to...I think in your brief you say $80 billion. But in your brief you don't specifically ask for any dollar amounts for anything. Is that correct?

[Karen Lynch]

First of all, it's not volunteers. The voluntary sector is $80 billion. Anybody would say that's an awful lot of volunteer time if it were.

What we're asking for is to look at what is already there to make sure we can use it. So there is already a plethora of existing information about voluntary sector organizations and how to work with them and how to engage volunteers in the 21st century. Getting that out and allowing non-profit organizations that are capacity-builders—organizations like Volunteer Alberta, Volunteer Canada—to get that information out and to train and move people into the 21st century is what we're looking for. The cost we've seen is anywhere from a $5 million investment to a $10 million investment to be able to do that, number one.

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

So that would mean undertaking a study or putting an organization in charge.

[Karen Lynch]

An organization would be in charge, one or more of them. We're good at partnering and at making sure that we're cost effective in getting the information out.

One of the things we are asking for is the Canadian survey of giving, volunteering, and participating—I'll refer to it as the CSGVP. This is a cost, although it's already buried in the current budget. It's a Statistics Canada document that comes out every three years. It's been called different things in the past, but in 2004 it changed the name.

Between 2004 and 2007, there was a concern that the statistics would not be required again. To make sure we had it, the non-profit sector had to get up, get organized, and talk to MPs. We understand now, as we're going into the next collection period, that the CSGVP scheduled for 2010 is on the cutting block. This is a huge concern for us.

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

The CSGVP, what is this?

[Karen Lynch]

The Canadian survey of giving, volunteering, and participating. It's the only national Canadian data collection for volunteering and donations.

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

That's a Canadian program?

[Karen Lynch]

It's Canadian—it's a Statistics Canada program.

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

I have a quick question for Mayor Mandel. With regard to the projects that the city has submitted for the last round of infrastructure funding, have all your projects been started? Have they all gotten the money they needed? How is that working out for you? We've heard nightmare stories from the City of Toronto. In Quebec all the money's been transferred to the Province of Quebec, and the City of Montreal is working with the province. So in Quebec it's been taken care of, but that's a different way of funding. I'd like to know.

[Stephen Mandel]

We have a close relationship with the province. Once the projects were approved, we had to go through a process.

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

How many projects did you submit? Did you get at least some funding for all of them?

[Stephen Mandel]

We submitted five projects and we have approvals for four. We asked for changes in one of them, and this is being processed.

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

Of the four that were approved, have any commenced?