Finance Committee on Oct. 19th, 2009

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

Mind you, that's a problem a lot of us would like to have.

[Pierre Beauchamp]

Well, it may be so, but if you want to get the economy to move, and to rejuvenate the properties that are on the market now, and to listen to what many Canadians are saying, and to provide help to kick-start...and not only for real estate. We have demonstrated the importance in other sectors as well. Each property generates all kinds of other benefits economically and in terms of the job market.

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

Okay. Thank you, Mr. Beauchamp.

My second question is for SaskTel.

A recent Harvard study said that Canada's broadband was slow and expensive. That's entirely coincident with my experience with Rogers in Toronto: it's slow, it's expensive, and it's infrequent. And yet the industry continues to make pretty serious profits.

You want to have it deemed as an essential service. If it's deemed as an essential service, it would likely become much more of a regulated industry, and the profits of a lot of companies might well be curtailed as they are driven into enhancement of service.

I'd be interested in your response to the Harvard study and whether that is uniformly true across Canada. As well, how does this essential service thing play out?

[Robert Watson]

Thank you for the question.

I'd like to introduce John Meldrum, who is also with me. He keeps me on the straight and narrow. In case I say something that's not true, he'll jump in.

It's very complicated. You have several elements to your question.

First of all, is Canada served properly in its broadband initiatives? You would say that in the urban areas, the main urban areas, Canada is doing quite well. However, I don't have to say to any member of the committee that we have a country that's 300 miles long and 100 kilometres wide; it stays mostly within the border--

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

Sorry, but just let me stop you: you do think the urban areas are doing well?

[Robert Watson]

Generally, I would think the urban areas are doing well, quite frankly, compared to the rural areas. Yes.

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

Well, compared to rural, I would agree in terms of access, but in terms of the quality of service, the Harvard study says it's lousy.

[Robert Watson]

I haven't read the Harvard survey in detail, but travelling around the world, I would think that the wireless service and the broadband services in the major cities, in Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, and the 10 major cities, are as good as anywhere in the world. Generally, everybody--

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

Okay. I'm not arguing with you.

[Robert Watson]

Quite frankly, in my personal opinion, sometimes our opinion is on quality of service rather than the broadband service itself. Certainly some competitors' quality of service isn't up to speed, in my personal opinion, but it doesn't mean that the broadband service is not there.

You have very robust competition in the major centres. In Montreal, you have Bell and Vidéotron, the cable company, and there is very robust competition generally in Quebec, not just in Montreal. In the Ontario area, you have very robust competition going on with Rogers and Bell--very robust competition. Even in this province, we have Shaw Communications and Access Communications, the cable providers, with very robust competition in this province in the major centres. It is the rural centres that people generally stay away from and the minimum requirements that they meet in rural centres.

Quite a while ago, they determined that local line service was an essential service in this country, and therefore a mechanism was put in place not only to help fund the build-out of that network, but also, how do you fund the ongoing...? Our point is that it's fine to say “we'll give you some money to build a network”, but it's the ongoing upkeep of that network that's needed, which the national high-cost fund delivers for deep rural areas. We're saying to take that and make broadband an essential service, and then take that mechanism that's there already, making it more modern and making it so that the maintaining of the broadband network is....

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McKay.

We're going to go to Mr. Laforest, s'il vous plaît.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good afternoon to all the witnesses.

I will start with a question for Mr. Beauchamp, who mentioned that he had a limited amount of time.

You recommend expanding the HBP to all new homebuyers. Do you have a sense of how many people such a measure might target?

[Pierre Beauchamp]

Of course, it is impossible to say exactly. But we have specific statistics on the plan's performance since 1992. I will ask Mr. Klump to provide those figures.

[Gregory Klump, Chief Economist, Canadian Real Estate Association]

The homebuyers' plan has been a huge success in enabling people to buy a home. Originally when the plan was implemented in 1992, it was open to all homebuyers, and then later it was limited to first-time homebuyers.

The great thing, of course, is that every home sale involves spinoff spending as well. Based on data from 2006 to 2008, each sale generated an average of $46,400 in spinoff spending over three years after the transaction. Also, based on data over that period, more than 200,000 jobs annually were created as a result. The homebuyers' plan is a huge economic benefit as well as a benefit to homebuyers.

Since the plan was implemented, I believe that over half a million homes have been purchased through the homebuyers' plan. Opening it up to all buyers would keep it consistent with what was originally an economic stimulus package in 1992. Activity is anticipated to fall off in the second half of 2010. Just to put that in context, with the implementation of the HST come Canada Day in 2010, one of the elements of consumer confidence.... Consumer confidence has rebounded quite strongly, but one of the elements of consumer confidence is whether families feel their household budget will be better off in six months' time.

Once it becomes clear in British Columbia and in Ontario when the HST comes in about how much more people will be paying for things, one of the things that can help offset that hit on consumer confidence would be the question about whether now is a good time to make a--

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

I will stop you there, as we are short on time. You answered my question for the most part. Thank you.

My next question is for Mr. Marit, from the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities.

You said that, as a result of removing miles of rail line, road use has increased, so much so that roads have deteriorated to some extent. So you are asking the federal government to invest in road reconstruction and repair.

Why are you not instead asking the government to reinvest in rail companies in order to restore a system that may have been performing well but that private companies were unable to support for a certain period of time?

[Dave Marit]

I guess the way I would answer that is by saying that, for the most part, the railways operate on profit and loss, on a return on investment to their shareholders. When they look at the traffic that is generated on some of these rail lines, they have to have a very high volume, be it in bushels or cars, moving on that track. When that gets down to what they call a breaking point, then they feel it is time for them to discontinue service on those lines. So that's what they do.

In western Canada we're caught up in a chicken-and-egg scenario. The railway will provide service to the grain industry but the grain industry may not call for cars on those lines. So the railway will say that the grain companies aren't asking for cars, and the grain companies will say that the railway isn't providing good service.

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

You are pretty pessimistic about the future of the rail industry. Will the situation keep getting worse?

[Dave Marit]

In everything we're seeing in this province, yes.

I think if you had CN and CP in a room and told them they could provide a national railway through the provinces, where all they had to do was “hook and haul”--a term they sometimes use--they would love to do that. We think there is an opportunity for the rail industry in another category, whether it be short lines or provincial railways, to provide that service to CN and CP, but we need assistance in doing that.

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

Thank you.

Ms. Doig, you are recommending that the federal government spend $1.5 billion on shovel-ready health facilities.

What do you mean by shovel-ready? Are you talking about projects or plans that are already down on paper?

[Dr. Anne Doig]

Yes, that's correct. The concept of shovel-ready means that we have facilities or construction projects that are ready to go but not yet actualized. I'm not talking about things that are seven years out; I'm talking about things where we're literally ready to dig the hole in the ground.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Ms. Block, please.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all of our presenters today. It's certainly a pleasure to be here in my home province and to meet with you. I know many of you personally.

I read your presentations with much interest. I hope I can get all my questions in today.

First, to the Canadian Medical Association, as a person who has served on a district health board and a regional health authority for over 13 years, I certainly know the difficulty in implementing any kind of provincial strategy, let alone a national strategy, when it comes to the rationalization of acute care services or even a health information network.

I'd be curious to have you expand a little bit on your recommendation for a national health strategy, as well as your comments, if you have any, on the “patient first” review that was just presented to the Government of Saskatchewan this last week by Commissioner Tony Dagnone. Does it fit at all with any of the things you are flagging nationally?

[Dr. Anne Doig]

That's a question I wasn't expecting from this particular audience, but thank you for it.

We've had only a brief chance to review the recommendations that Commissioner Dagnone has made. Having said that, I think there are strong synergies in many of the recommendations with the general direction that is being proposed by the Canadian Medical Association in the health care transformation project. We're really talking the same language. I noticed in reading Mr. Dagnone's report that he has fairly carefully stayed at a high level. That too is the approach that we've been taking at the CMA. The actualization of what will happen obviously may look different in different jurisdictions.

I'm also struck by the synergies I heard this morning in listening to my colleagues from SaskTel talking about the IT issues and the broadband issues. I'm sure members of the committee realize just how critical that kind of service is for the medical profession. Talking, for example, about telehealth, about the ability of physicians in small rural and remote communities to have direct clinical access to specialists in central tertiary centres allows physicians.... I've seen this in operation in northwestern Ontario, for example, where you can actually examine a patient online and talk to the specialist so that the patient is prevented from having to travel perhaps 300 to 500 miles to obtain that service. So the need for a unified approach to these kinds of issues is very strong.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Thank you very much.

I'd now like to move to SARM. I read your submission, and in that submission you stated that in recent months SARM has taken on the administration of the MREP and the SARM-initiated Clearing the Path program. Now, I was a mayor of a small community that worked quite closely with a rural municipality and thought that I had heard about the Clearing the Path program a couple of years ago. So are these new programs or was someone else administering these programs before SARM?