Finance Committee on Oct. 19th, 2009

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

How many members does the urban organization have?

[Allan Earle]

We have 470 members.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Very good. I appreciate that.

I ask that question because you asked about long-term funding. We also like balanced budgets. We're in an area where we don't have investments, so we have to be careful from the federal perspective about what is one-time funding and what is in the program and would be there long term.

A few years ago, in Budget 2006, the urban folks asked about housing. We put $800 million into the budget for housing, with 99% delivered by the provinces, and in my area delivered through the regions.

Did your municipality see any of that money that went to the provinces?

[Fred Clipsham]

My understanding, through discussions between our mayor, Pat Fiacco, and the Minister of Social Services, Donna Harpauer, who's responsible for Saskatchewan housing, is that all the money this year has gone for renovations.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

In the current year it's for renovations, but this was a number of years ago, in 2006-07.

[Fred Clipsham]

The number of apartments or accommodations built that qualify as affordable housing in Regina is limited to one development that Saskatchewan Housing did in the last little while. All the developments that historically have been done by the non-profit organizations, like Silver Sage Housing Corporation, Gabriel Housing Corporation, and Namerind Housing Corporation, are for aboriginal people. They haven't built anything new.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

I appreciate that.

I have a question for the chamber. I'm from Ontario, and we're having issues with harmonization even at the federal level. A lot of people aren't that excited about it, even though I'm an advocate of it and have tried to explain it to people.

What is the sales tax rate in Saskatchewan?

[Steve McLellan]

It is 5%.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

The Ontario chamber has a video on its website supporting the change.

Have you been supporting the change for a while? I don't understand. Is the provincial government just not happy with what the offer is from the federal government in terms of the transition costs? Is that part of where the problem lies?

[Steve McLellan]

I think it is more complex than that, but that's certainly part of it. In order to make the transition happen, the funding, or the agreement with the federal government, not only on the core dollars that would be transferred to the provincial government but on the specific elements of the agreement, needs to be right for Saskatchewan in the eyes of our organization. And of course the federal and provincial governments need to be in agreement. It is a complex issue.

The other element our provincial government is concerned about is that there is a perception, which I don't believe is accurate, that harmonization is good for business and bad for consumers. The reality, we suggest, though, is that it is good for Saskatchewan, because it will hire more people, it will increase business expansion, and it will mean more provincial government dollars in the long run. It's a wash in the original years. That is good for Saskatchewan. The more money consumers have because they have more work is obviously a positive thing.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Yes.

I have one quick one. I appreciate your coming today from EnCana.

Don't we need cars that burn natural gas before we have an organization of filling stations for them? Aren't we putting the cart before the horse? Shouldn't the car companies be advocating for this instead of the person producing natural gas?

[Eric Marsh]

There are a couple of ways to look at it. First is that in the trucking industry you have the ability to do that today. When you look worldwide, you have about 10 million vehicles running on natural gas. For instance, in Europe alone you have probably between 40 and 50 different models that use natural gas. In North America we are really behind in embracing the whole concept.

We would definitely say that you need some opportunities and different styles of vehicles. In the United States you can buy one OEM--an original equipment manufactured vehicle. It is the Honda Civic GX. We have seven of them, and it's the only natural gas manufactured vehicle you have. It's a fantastic car, but not everybody wants to drive a Honda Civic. Some people like minivans; some people like trucks.

You're right. We need to work toward that, and we are meeting with the auto sector to try to encourage that. Fiat produces 16. It has probably been the leader in natural gas vehicles. It has a very large market share in Italy and Germany. We'd love to see that happen, but at the same time, you have, as Don mentioned, the chicken-and-egg phenomenon. We have a little bit of infrastructure, but we need infrastructure before you can start to generate the vehicles and begin to convert trucks.

In North America we have about 10,000 18-wheelers running on LNG right now. It is starting to happen.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Wallace.

We are going to Mr. McKay.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

My first question is directed to Ms. Doig and is with respect to physician adoption of electronic technology. It does seem extraordinarily slow.

In another life I used to practise law in Ontario. We decided we would convert the entire province to electronic filing for land titles. The system went relatively smoothly, and it was arguably a far more difficult job than converting patient records and things of that nature. The lawyers' part of it was that if you wanted to practise law, you had to buy the equipment, buy the technology, go to courses, learn how to use it, and teach your staff how to use it. If you didn't want to, to practise law, too bad for you.

What I don't understand is the core resistance of the physicians, or the apparent core resistance of the physicians, to adopting this technology and embracing it and driving it, because, frankly, in the health care system, if you don't drive it through the doctors, it ain't going to happen.

If you could expand on that thought, I'd be interested.

[Dr. Anne Doig]

I'd love to expand on that thought, but I think I must first correct the misinterpretation in the second part of your question. I absolutely do not agree that the holdup in the adoption of IT in the medical profession is the result of physician resistance to the development of EMRs--not at all.

There are two components to this. One is the complexity of the type of information we're dealing with. It is not as simple as what you're thinking of when you think of a dictated record, or the kinds of records that lawyers keep, where really what you're dealing with is note-taking. We deal with information that is much more complex and much more in need of manipulability.

I need, for example, to be able to integrate incoming lab results into my file. I need, if possible, to be able to link those lab results to information about the prescriptions the patient may be taking, and to link prescriptions to both the international prescriptions in our office and external prescriptions that are given to that patient elsewhere. I need to link that information so that drug-to-drug interactions can be managed, and I need to link that to knowledge of the patient's allergies.

The biggest piece of resistance has come from the fact that we do not have systems that are sufficiently integrated, interoperable, and manipulable.

The other issue for physicians is different from those in any other professional industry, if you will, around Canada. My husband is a professional engineer. I know about computerization in the engineering business.

This is an unfunded expense for physicians. As I mentioned earlier, 90% or more of us are self-employed individuals. We do not have external support for any of our infrastructure costs, our capital costs. So if you're asking us to purchase a system, as my office did 10 years ago, where the upfront cost is a quarter of a million dollars spread across seven physicians, with no opportunity to enhance the revenue stream to match that expenditure, that is part of the reason why physicians are asking for special consideration under the CCA--because in fact we need to be able to offset the quite considerable costs. They've come down over time, but they are still quite considerable. Seven doctors could manage a quarter of a million dollars; if you go to two or three doctors, it's not supportable.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

I'd like to pursue that, but I'm running out of time. That was a very helpful answer and I thank you for it, because interoperability is an important issue, and, as you know, in Ontario it's a bit of a mess right now, so--

[Dr. Anne Doig]

I was afraid you'd ask me about that.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Yes.

My last question is to Mr. Marsh. In one of the more bizarre experiences of my life, I went to the Republican national convention in 2008, and I came to the conclusion that I was a flaming socialist after listening to the presentations at the national Republican convention--holy gee.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Anyway, there was an occasional moment of sanity, and one was provided by Mr. T. Boone Pickens, who has in the United States a concept that is very similar to what you are proposing for Canada. I thought he had it rather nicely laid out. It was, in effect, a network of natural gas facilities right across the United States, primarily for fleets.

But the one question that sort of nagged at the back of my mind was that with the fleets you had a kind of drop-off in the power of the unit. Can you address that?

[Eric Marsh]

Yes, I can. There is a fantastic company in Vancouver called Cummins Westport. They actually build engines for 18-wheelers, buses, and things of that nature. We've partnered with them from time to time. Certain of their technologies will allow you to have virtually the same horsepower out of an engine with natural gas as you will with diesel. Typically it's 98% or just slightly less than that.

What you're referring to is that often people will try to convert a diesel or gasoline engine without doing any of the advanced things, through the technology they have today, to pick that up. Many of us experienced that back 20 years ago when we were trying to run natural gas in our vehicles. You would have a drop-off of 15%, 20%, or 30% of the horsepower.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Yes.

[Eric Marsh]

Today, with fuel injection, that's being taken care of by the technology in the engines. For instance, our Honda Civics run at almost the same horsepower as a gasoline version does. What they've been able to accomplish is fairly impressive.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

That is interesting. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

I'm going to take the next five-minute round.

I just want to follow up very quickly with Mr. Marsh on both Mr. McKay's and Mr. Wallace's good questions. It seems to me, especially with respect to Mr. Wallace's question about the availability of vehicles in North America, that it is a chicken-and-egg thing, as you mentioned. What you are saying is that if the federal government were to at least adopt a policy, that would get the discussion going, and you'd sort of address the chicken-and-egg thing by the federal government indicating that this is a direction they'd like to move in. That is the first step.