Finance Committee on Nov. 2nd, 2009

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Would it be worth while?

[Bill Ferreira]

Absolutely.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

We've had four organizations come to us, whether engineers or consulting engineers, advocating for us to help fund a five-year program to get that going. I'm just wondering about your association's position.

My next question is for the medical students. I'm assuming you are still students.

[Tyler Johnston]

Yes.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

I want to first of all congratulate you on putting up with 13 years of education to become doctors. The more doctors we have, the better.

I want to clarify one thing. I have been supportive in the past of your ask, and I continue to be supportive of your ask. You're really looking for a deferral of your requirements to pay this money back. You are not looking for it to be written off--is that correct?

[Tyler Johnston]

The deferral is one option. What they're doing in Ontario now is forgiving both the federal and provincial portions--

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Are they actually forgiving it completely?

[Tyler Johnston]

It's during your residency training only. This is about getting trainees through a time of financial stress and ensuring that the financial stress doesn't influence their decisions about where to practise and what to practise.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

I have heard the argument about residency before, that the bill shouldn't start until after that is over. It was always the understanding that you would still end up having to pay those costs. Is that still your position or not?

[Tyler Johnston]

That's absolutely still our position. It is about getting us through a time of financial stress and personal stress, about training 80 to 100 hours a week, and looking after Canadians.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Okay, I have one more question for you.

Your predecessors, the physicians organization to which you will eventually belong, were here. They are asking for money for 50 more residencies. Should those only go to Canadians, or should anybody be able to apply for them? How does that work?

[Tyler Johnston]

The thing that has to be looked at is we've increased enrolment in medical school by over 50% over the last ten years, and the increase in residency spaces hasn't kept pace with that. So we would have to look at those residency spaces going to fill the spots for the increased number of Canadians being trained.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you.

We'll go to Ms. Block. You have three and a half minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all of our presenters. I did find your presentations very interesting and did read through your submissions.

My first question is for Mr. Conway. Of course we all know that Canada is the only major industrialized country without a common or national securities regulator, and our Conservative government has been clear that this is unacceptable. This has been borne out by the current market turmoil, which has clearly highlighted the need for improved securities regulation.

I was interested in hearing from you, in your opening remarks, that the creation of a Canadian securities regulator is imperative. I'm wondering if you would explain why we should continue on that path.

[Michael Conway]

Thank you, Mrs. Block.

FEI Canada did participate in the Hockin panel and currently is participating in round tables, just last week with the Canadian securities transition office, to move this initiative forward.

FEI Canada is all about efficiency and capital markets that work well. Just intuitively, one national securities regulator has to be more efficient that thirteen different securities regulators. There are issues that need to be discussed among the various participating and not-yet-participating provinces, which Mr. Menzies is smiling about. We've written to your provincial finance minister in that regard, encouraging her to come to the table and voice some of her very legitimate concerns about access, particularly for small issuers, about not creating a longer bureaucracy but to be all about efficiency, the speed of the capital market, because that equates to a lower cost of capital for Canadian business, and ultimately for consumers.

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

Okay, thank you.

Mr. Duguay, we recognize that strong productivity is key to growth, and I believe our action plan builds on a longstanding agenda to improve productivity on multiple fronts. From the perspective of your organization, I wonder if you could quickly share with the committee the importance of the aggressive actions our government is taking in lowering business taxes.

[Stéphane Duguay]

Of course, the measures that the provincial and federal governments have put in place in terms of infrastructure have greatly assisted in the economic recovery and in performing better than our neighbours to the South. In that sense, infrastructure investment has helped. With its diversified economy, which is focused much less on the automotive industry, Quebec has not been hit as hard. On the whole, it has had relatively good growth compared to others.

In addition, the financial markets were relatively balanced and had good liquidity levels, which has made it possible to support the current recovery.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you, Ms. Block.

We'll go to Mr. Martin, please.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you, Chair.

My first question is to the National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations.

Chief Atleo, we had a fairly compelling presentation from the B.C. Treaty Commission; some of the commissioners presented to us. I think a lot of members of the committee, and perhaps ordinary Canadians, don't understand what a barrier to economic development it is for first nations communities to be without the ability to develop or exploit natural resources, etc., on their traditional territories, and that the Indian Act itself doesn't allow it until such time as a modern-day treaty is ratified.

Could you perhaps expand on what this finance committee might do to recommend enhancement of that process so that more communities can participate in meaningful economic development with lands and resources?

[Chief Shawn A-in-chut Atleo]

Thank you.

I think that speaks in large part to why we would suggest the striking of a joint senior officials task group to examine these issues and the relationship between the negotiations that have been happening in places like British Columbia, but not isolated to B.C. We can include the Atlantic and other areas of the country that negotiate under a comprehensive claims policy that dates back to 1986. The strong view of first nations is that it needs to be brought up to date, needs to reflect the developments that have occurred in common law. And the point of entry for all of us should be, in large part, the economic imperative to move our peoples out from conditions of poverty. Over the last three months in particular, I've travelled extensively. There are significant barriers that hold us back.

Now, speaking to this committee about issues around finance, first nations are not able to get their feet underneath them because of the arbitrariness of the fiscal transfers. It's a year-to-year basis. The 2% cap has been there for well over ten years and adversely impacts the entire policy spectrum of first nations, so that they're really unable.... It stifles, as I said earlier, entrepreneurship and economic development. It's linked with significant barriers that exist in the Indian Act that hold first nations back from economic development initiatives.

And to this committee, it's not like we're starting afresh. We've had the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. In 2005, in my former role as B.C. regional chief, we came to a national report called “The Recognition and Implementation of First Nation Governments”. We've also done considerable work with the Attorney General's office and the Treasury Board Secretariat around models of mutual accountability, because we always get this issue, and it's been raised with others around this table: what are you doing about your areas?

Well, we have mechanisms that have been tabled. What's required is the political will, and perhaps for this committee to see that the point of entry should be around fiscal transfers, around economic self-sufficiency for communities, and addressing the fact that there are significant barriers to achieving economic success for first nations.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you.

I was struck by the fact that under the Indian Act a first nations community can't get involved in any kind of economic development. Even if they struck oil on their land, essentially it isn't theirs to develop, the trees are not theirs to harvest, etc., until such time as a treaty is put in place and people can do their own economic development in their own communities.

Something has frustrated me for years, though. The Canadian Construction Association has been talking about skill shortages. We just built a new airport in Winnipeg using temporary foreign workers. Lebanese crews that came from Latvia, which was their last job, came to Winnipeg to build our airport. And my riding has the second-highest aboriginal population, with huge numbers of marginally employed, underemployed, or unemployed aboriginal youth. Somehow we haven't made the connection between the skill shortages and the human resource surpluses to make that natural match. Not that every young aboriginal kid wants to become a tradesperson, but there are jobs out there. We're bringing in 250,000 foreign workers a year, and we haven't put to work a generation of young aboriginal people.

Do either of you have any comment on how we might make that labour market match?

[Bill Ferreira]

We at the CCA couldn't agree more. That is in part why we're asking for an extension to the knowledge infrastructure program, which is trying to address the capacity crunch that many of our colleges have. The biggest problem a lot of the marginally employed face is that when they turn to the college system, they're told it's going to be about three years for them to get into their program. Anyone who has to wait three years to get into a college program is not going to wait, and they fall through the cracks and disappear off the radar.

I know the Association of Canadian Community Colleges was here before us, but they estimate they need about $7.4 billion of additional investment just to get their capacity up to what it needs to be to address these current shortages we're facing in Canada, let alone the shortfall we anticipate we're going to be facing in our economy in about five to seven years. So something has to be done.

I recognize everyone is coming here with recommendations, and they're all worthy recommendations, but this is something that is far too important to the future of our economy to just be ignored. We really need to do something at this point to address skill shortages or we are going to see labour costs go through the roof; we are going to see scarcity of labour in the next 10 to 15 years. This has to be addressed.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

You've got about 45 seconds.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

I wonder if we could have the national chief address the same issue.