Finance Committee on Oct. 20th, 2009

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

So how would the research work? Would it be an institution or would it be your association that would conduct that research?

[Kaaren Neufeld]

No, this would be nurse researchers from across the country who are located in our universities across this country who would be conducting the research. They would be leading it.

The moneys would be earmarked, though, particularly for nursing research. If I can give you an example, a recent project that was done—not only in terms of nurse practitioners—would be on sexual health behaviours of Canadian youth. That was very instructional in terms of HPV vaccination and the requirements and timing of that. So that would be an example of something that nursing would be researching and innovating.

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

That's a good example. Thank you.

Just quickly for Genome Prairie, Mr. Naimark, in your brief there is no dollar amount in terms of how much funding you are requesting or if there is any funding that you are requesting. What I found unclear is that you are asking for a lot of the new moneys to be invested through the western economic diversification program. You don't get money from them, do you?

[Dr. Arnold Naimark]

First, to clarify, we didn't put any dollar figures on it, not because we don't think the funding is important, but to make sure that it's organized and directed in the right strategic ways in order to solve the problems. Of course, we recognize the financial pressures the country is under and that we have to pay attention to what we can do with what we have, and we talk about removing barriers and creating incentives and so on.

Western diversification, economic diversification, provides funding for that kind of grouping to come together throughout the western region. So we, along with other organizations, can put forward projects to western economic diversification for help in supporting developments. What we've done through them in the west is to develop interprovincial networks related to genomics that are really able to pool all of the talents in western Canada together to try to solve some critical problems in agriculture and so on.

So, yes, we're eligible, but they do not fund specific institutions. They respond to partnerships, primarily.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you, and thank you, Mr. Pacetti. Unfortunately, we're out of time.

We'll go to Mr. Laforest.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have a single question for Mr. Naimark of Genome Prairie.

You have come to talk to us about genomics research. You would like the federal government to increase funding to support your research. Could you give us an idea of the latest developments, the latest breakthroughs that have been made by your organization? What research paths are you developing? Could you give us a concrete example of what you are working on?

[Dr. Arnold Naimark]

If you have an opportunity to read this...but I'll give you one example. As you know, for such things as mad cow disease, working out the genetic composition of normal beef cattle and cows and so on is a tremendous advance in allowing us to make rapid diagnosis of the presence of mad cow disease, rather than having to wait months while it goes through laboratories working on brain samples and so on. If you had a test based on genetics that would come through a blood sample, you'd have rapid diagnosis.

In the area of other infectious diseases in humans, the genomic centres in western Canada played a critical role in determining the nature of the SARS virus, the virus that was responsible for the SARS epidemic, and have been major contributors to figuring out the genetic composition of the H1N1 flu virus. That allows vaccine development to proceed more quickly.

We also have dozens of projects in the agriculture area with respect to changing the genetic composition of crops to make them more resistant to plant diseases, to make them more weather resistant. Those are the sorts of things we do.

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

With regard to genomics and mad cow disease, you say that you have been able to improve a number of livestock production practices. I suppose that there is a very direct link between that example and the marketing considerations of cattle producers, who account for a sizeable share of the region's economy. Ultimately, the interesting fact that needs to be highlighted is that the research work that you do, when it is properly supported, provides significant commercial benefits to cattle producers, among others.

[Dr. Arnold Naimark]

Exactly.

For example, we now have two projects that are working on using genetically modified bacteria to clean up oil spills in the environment. We have projects using bacterial populations and other micro-organisms in the process of being able to release oil supplies that are trapped in inaccessible locations.

So there are projects going from environment to energy, to human and animal health, biofuels, all of these things, that have their basis in genomics and related sciences, and we see that Canada has built up a platform in the last decade or so. What we now need to do is to make sure we keep that strong and develop it further and especially focus on commercialization of the discoveries we make so that the economic benefits to Canada can flow.

We see most of that happening by working more effectively together in order to use our resources better and to remove barriers. The intellectual property regimes in Canada have been made up of reform related to biotechnology for years. There are process barriers. We've had reports on smart regulation and all the rest of it. None of that has yet produced the kind of streamlining that is absolutely essential.

We think we can compete. What we want is the ability to compete, and that doesn't just mean more investment, although that's critically important. It also means using it more effectively.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

You have 30 seconds remaining.

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

That is fine. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you, Mr. Laforest.

Mr. Dechert, please.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for your presentations. It's good to be here in the heartland of Canada.

I have some questions for Mr. Benham.

I appreciate your recommendation regarding the landing fee. I've always been troubled by that landing fee. We invite people to come to our country. They bring their families, and of course they have the costs of getting here and the costs of establishing a home and looking for work, and the first thing we do is tax them at, previously, $1,000 per head.

Do you remember when that landing fee of $1,000 a head was imposed?

[Donald Benham]

I'm sorry, I don't know that.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Well, I'll help you out. It was in the mid-1990s, I think, when Mr. McKay was in the government. Of course, I was always quite surprised that we would do that, because it's a significant tax: $1,000 per person.

As you know, we immediately cut it in half, in 2006, which I hope was helpful, and I'd like to see it go further, because I believe new Canadians contribute greatly to our economy and we need to help them get established—and obviously there are other costs that we fund through the government to help people settle.

That said, I take your recommendation and I think it's a good one, and I personally will pass it along. I believe it will be well received in Ottawa.

What other kind of settlement funding do you think is required to help new Canadians establish themselves in Canada? What other things would you recommend in that regard?

[Donald Benham]

There is a lot of progress being made on that. There are a number of organizations. The Social Planning Council of Winnipeg is, in essence, a coalition of different organizations, and I would feel more comfortable with some of our members here. For instance, we have the Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization of Manitoba, which has already opened some transitional housing. In fact, it happens that our office is right across from their transitional housing in downtown Winnipeg, not far from here. They're just about to begin building a second phase of transitional housing, and that will have federal money in it as well as provincial money. So we are delighted to see that. We think that is transitional, not a permanent solution, but it's transitional housing for people and that can be very useful.

At the Social Planning Council we've initiated a project that we're calling the African immigrant centre for action, because a young African man with some experience, a war-affected person, came forward to us and said an awful lot of African young people he was speaking to were simply unaware of the range of social services. It's not that there weren't services available for them; it's that they had no way of connecting up with them.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

They need to be better promoted.

[Donald Benham]

We hear this a lot, so we believe there could be a role to play. We're currently studying and talking with the community about opening an African immigrant centre for action that would concentrate on putting young people into the right hands and connecting them with the right services.

Quite frankly, without those services, we're very concerned about young people entering gangs. There's a problem with aboriginal youth gangs, and there's definitely a problem with some young men entering gangs and partaking in criminal activity, so we would like to counteract that.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Thank you for those suggestions and for the good work you do.

You talked about EI, and I take some of your points there. I didn't hear you say much about skills training. Of course, one of the major problems we have with the current recession is older workers who have been working primarily in manufacturing being laid off after many years of work. As you know, our government has extended significantly the time period for EI benefits for older workers and offered them up to two years of benefits while they take skills retraining.

Is that helpful? If so, what more needs to be done to help older workers train to transition into new kinds of work?

[Donald Benham]

We too are big believers in education as a very important factor in getting people out of poverty, for all groups. I would say you might look at that two-year period. The provincial government used to have very strict limits on people on welfare getting training to get out of welfare. They've recently relaxed those to the point where they are now talking about people on welfare getting actual university degrees, talking about whether that would be acceptable. I don't see why that wouldn't be acceptable to the federal government as well—a three- and four-year educational period instead of just the one and two years. That could result in a much better base of education.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

I have a quick question for Mr. Barnard.

We've heard from a lot of universities and colleges across Canada about the need for further support for research. My question to you and to all universities and colleges is this. Should we have a national strategy and concentrate our efforts in certain specific niche areas?

You've mentioned establishing a centre for grain research. Is that the sort of thing we should do, or should we just be allowing the universities to go off in any direction?

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you, Mr. Dechert.

Dr. Barnard, could you give just a brief response to that?

[Dr. David Barnard]

Universities typically have plans that focus their activities. We know the federal government already has in place some statements in, for example, the science and technology policy that focus in areas. I think it makes sense to focus, and we agree with you.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you.

We'll go to Mr. McKay please.

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

Mr. Dobrowolski, in your presentation you talk about what you essentially like in terms of your relationship with the federal government and what you don't like. You appear to like the continuation of the gas tax. Presumably you'd prefer even an enhancement of the gas tax. You certainly liked the previous government's forgiveness of the GST...[Technical difficulty--Editor]