Finance Committee on Oct. 18th, 2010

[Dawn Conway]

All of it.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Can you tell the committee what is happening to the funding for this research site in the North Pole?

[Dawn Conway]

Thank you for asking the question.

The easy answer is that I can't tell you what's happening. It's like a pack of cards; there are 11 bodies funding that agency. Canada Foundation for Innovation has helped support the facility. NSERC is helping to run the facility. We are supporting the work being done at the facility; our funding runs out. Where that research money will come from is anyone's guess, because NSERC is not able to pick up that portion.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

I understand that. The outlook right now is pretty grim, I would think.

[Dawn Conway]

It is indeed.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Because there is no guarantee; this could be over with....

It surprises me because I've heard from the government--notwithstanding that we don't hear about the environment--that we do care about Arctic sovereignty. I'm wondering how you rationalize having a priority of Arctic sovereignty without investing in climate research in the North Pole.

Do you want to comment on that?

[Dawn Conway]

I don't think it's for me to respond to that one.

But I agree that it's a unique facility. It's part of a small number of circumpolar facilities. We're partnered with countries around the globe, and when this one disappears it will be a huge gap for the rest of the world.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

I appreciate your diplomacy. I shouldn't have asked the question; I understand that now.

But I want you to know that everybody now knows there is a lack of support and that the days of the PEARL research site in the North Pole likely are numbered. The government does not consider this to be a priority, and I think it's a shame.

I want to turn now to the automobile dealers, to the manufacturers, with regard to the moneys that were given. I guess the money was ultimately only taken up and used by General Motors to take care of the dealers who did not want to get into the class action suit to sue for losing their dealerships. The problem that occurred, as I understand it, is that the federal government gave the money to General Motors, which then gave the money to certain dealers who weren't going to sue, and a number of those dealers decided they weren't going to pay any severance to any of the employees who were going to lose their jobs.

My question, for clarification, is whether either of the groups, CADA or the automobile manufacturers association, are aware of any conditions, strings, requirements, etc., that were put on the federal moneys to ensure the employees weren't thrown out of their jobs without getting any compensation or severance.

[Richard Gauthier]

Not being a recipient of government funding, I would have to defer that to my friend, Mark Nantais.

[Mark Nantais]

The steps General Motors took with their dealer body to ensure that they responded to the crisis facing them were not really known to the CVMA. I do not know the terms and conditions of that money, but I would suggest that any settlements and whatnot were done in compliance with the laws in place.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

I do understand, and we have talked about this before, Mark. The fact remains--and it's unfortunate--it's a case where the Government of Canada didn't follow the money through with requirements, and people got hurt. Those people who took the money didn't provide severance, but now that all the four tranches have gone out and they have the money in their pockets, they are free to sue General Motors for compensation for losing their dealerships. That is a double-whammy to the employees, because the employees will have absolutely no recourse.

Is that the case?

[Mark Nantais]

I don't know. I simply don't have the knowledge to answer your question.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

My point is--and I wish it weren't the case--the Government of Canada seems to have dropped the ball in securing some conditions under which those bailout moneys were made available.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Massimo Pacetti]

Okay. Thank you.

Mr. Nantais, very quickly.

[Mark Nantais]

I just want to be clear that I don't think we can leave anybody with the impression that the incidents you refer to are widespread and across the board. We're talking potentially about an isolated incident here.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Massimo Pacetti]

Thank you, Mr. Szabo.

There are six minutes left in the first round.

Mr. Paillé, you have six minutes.

[Daniel Paillé, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My colleague will no doubt talk about solar energy and the environment, but you must know that in order to increase research and development budgets for solar energy, the environment or the atmosphere, it takes a long-term vision. And as you know, we do not form the government but are part of the House of Commons. We are members of a committee that makes recommendations to the government.

I hope that you will continue to turn up the heat on the government, raise the temperature, so to speak, so it becomes more sensitive to these kinds of issues. But we have a government whose vision extends only as far as the very short term. It is unfortunate, but that is the way it is.

Ms. Donnelly, I want to turn to the study on child poverty. I get the sense that the further away we get from the government source, the harder it is to understand. Of course, the House of Commons unanimously adopted a motion on November 24, 2009, pointing out that 20 years before, it had adopted, no doubt unanimously, a motion to eliminate poverty. Despite the fact that so much time has gone by between the two motions, family and child poverty still exists.

I remember November 24, 2009 quite clearly. I did not take part in the debate because I had arrived in the afternoon. My colleague across the table, Mr. Généreux, arrived the following day because Rivière-du-Loup is even farther away than Hochelaga.

Do you not get the feeling that the fight against poverty is a sort of catch-all, a sort of generic measure to make ourselves feel good?

As you say, it involves many elements: family incomes, housing—by the way, the Bloc Québécois introduced a bill today on the CMHC surplus—minimum wage, employment insurance, education, child care and so forth.

You are talking to the federal government here, but I feel that this level of government may be too far removed. At the end of the day, should the federal government not send all that money to those levels of government that are more directly involved with poverty issues, the people affected, and that can take direct action, whether it is municipalities, groups or provincial ridings? Do you feel as though you are yelling at the federal Parliament, when the federal government is quite far removed from the actual issue, as compared with the provincial government?

[Mary-Lou Donnelly]

Thank you for the question.

No, I don't believe Ottawa is too far removed from these problems at all. This is a national strategy that we are supporting and that we are recommending to the federal government. Indeed, some of the provinces and territories, but not all of them, have taken it upon themselves to have a strategy in place. We believe that if we can get at the national level, where something can be put together so that all our provinces and territories can follow a strategy and at least have the same goals, that would help to eliminate poverty across Canada.

When we deal with issues at the federal level at the Canadian Teachers' Federation, we do deal with large-scale issues. We recognize, of course, that a lot can be done if you're much closer to the issue at the local provincial-territorial level. However, we advocate on the national level so that can all trickle down and that as a country we will all be on the same page.

We don't feel far removed from this at all--this is what we do at the Canadian Teachers' Federation--and we feel very strongly that a national strategy is needed to eliminate poverty. If the federal government passes a resolution to do just that, then the federal government should be stepping up to the plate. And we recommend that the federal government take a look at what we have submitted here, because every single day in our classrooms we see the effect of child poverty in front of us. That's not just in one province and that's not just in one territory; that is across this country. We see it every single day.

Some of the things we've cited for you in this brief or I have spoken about today only touch the surface. We could go very deeply into that.

So at the national level it is very important to have our national ministers, our federal ministers, looking at this and our government giving important consideration to child poverty in Canada.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Mr. Paillé, you have 30 seconds left.

[Daniel Paillé, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

I fully appreciate the gap financing problems that automobile dealers and RV dealers are having.

I just want to say that I do not think it is the government's job to adopt a measure promoting floor-plan financing.

Given that the supplier of your vehicles is here today, perhaps you could use this opportunity to talk a little bit. My feeling is that it is basically a matter of end product financing. It is the one doing the manufacturing, so it should support them.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Mr. Nantais, very briefly.

[Mark Nantais]

If I may just take a stab at that, I think you're suggesting as part of your question that the vehicle manufacturers should support their dealerships. The answer to that is that they are; they have been and they continue to do so.

The issue was access to credit. Access to credit was a problem that not just the auto industry experienced, but any retail, high-capital transaction that fell subject to access to credit. Dealerships could not get the credit based on the crisis we were experiencing that was not precipitated by anybody in Canada. So we have and we will continue to provide that support to them, but we need it through the Secured Credit Facility, as one example.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you.

We'll have to come back to that. I know others may have comments, but unfortunately we're well over Mr. Paillé's time.

I'll go to Mr. Hiebert, please.

[Russ Hiebert, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you all for being here.

So many questions, so little time.

My first question is to the solar industry. You're asking for $10 million to create a thousand jobs. Just briefly, the $10 million you're asking for, is that in the form of tax credits or is that something more direct?

[Dr. Phil Whiting]

No. It would be a program similar to the ecoENERGY program, which is a direct incentive to the homeowner.