Finance Committee on Oct. 19th, 2010

[Robert Carrier, Bloc, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

That is aligning with the Bloc's vision: the closer you are to the end users, the better you understand their needs.

[William Van Tassel]

There had already been a program in 2005 called the Transition Fund, with funding percentages established for each province, and the provinces used it as they saw fit in order to run their own programs.

[Robert Carrier, Bloc, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Very well, thank you.

How much time do I have left?

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

You have another 20 seconds.

[Robert Carrier, Bloc, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

I wanted to put a question to Ms. Pearson concerning philanthropic foundations. You have a proposal to attract new donors.

Now, the bill that is currently the subject of discussions and which was introduced by the Liberals is intended to improve people's perception.

Do you really think that we need to improve people's perception rather than to simply increase tax credits?

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

I would ask you to give a very brief response, please.

[Hilary Pearson]

Could we not do the two things at the same time?

We need to increase donations in Canada as well as improving people's perception of charities. However, that is an issue of governance and management in the charitable sector. There needs to be enhanced management and transparency so that perceptions can improve and people increase their donations.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you.

I have Mr. Dykstra next, but I need the consent of the committee because he's not a permanent member.

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Agreed, ça va, d'accord.

Okay, Mr. Dykstra, for a five-minute round, please.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Well, Mr. Pacetti may remember that in B.C. when I was on the finance committee, it was just the two of us out there for budget consultations.

Thanks very much, Mr. Chair, for the opportunity to ask a couple of questions this morning.

I did listen with interest to both Mr. Van Tassel and Mr. Guilbeault on the difficulties they face with respect to the size of our country and the different needs and issues they need to deal with from an agricultural perspective. This relates, I think, quite a bit to what Kithio was speaking about in terms of breaking down provincial barriers. So this may be a question for both of you.

I did want to ask Kithio this. One of the things you spoke about was process, and perhaps I can get a response from both of you on this: what do you think are the first two or three steps the federal government can take in working with the provincial governments to break down the barriers we're speaking about, especially with respect to working relationships and trade?

[Kithio Mwanzia]

Our first recommendation, as we already talked about, is the feasibility of a permit and reporting system. One of the biggest challenges that's been raised, particularly by the provincial liquor boards, is how there will be some monitoring and tracking of the interprovincial trade of wine, of alcohol.

The recommendation is to talk about a permit and reporting system: can there be something specifically geared towards the wine industry and working directly with the wineries, and the provincial liquor boards, to facilitate this process so there's some sort of tracking.

[Leo Guilbeault]

Each province has its own agriculture minister. Federally, we have Minister Ritz, but each province has its own agricultural minister. At the federal-provincial meeting, which has just passed, each province brought its own unique set of issues to the federal government. I think there needs to be a way for the agriculture ministers to work closer together on federal programming.

Right now, the Growing Forward suite of programs is pretty much set in stone, and the federal government says that will be until 2013. That frustrates a lot of these provincial agriculture ministers, who have their own unique needs. I think there has to be a way we can facilitate a more flexible way for provincial agriculture ministers to access federal dollars for their own needs within their own provinces.

As we mentioned, Canada is a big country. Agriculture in British Columbia is a whole lot different from what it is in Quebec, which is a whole lot different from Saskatchewan. I think we have to be sensitive to those different issues. If we look at what happened out west this summer with the floods, and then in my end of the world with the drought--we didn't get a drop of rain through the whole month of August.

Every day we all need to eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and we're being asked, as farmers, to do that for more and more people on the same amount of land.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Speaking of breakfast, lunch, and dinner, I know one of the main aspects the finance committee struggles with in terms of making recommendations--and certainly a number of you alluded to the issues with respect to tight budgets and fiscal restraints.... I wonder about the breaking down of the barriers between provinces across our country.

Most folks come to budget committee to ask for money. I wonder if Kithio could speak to the fact that this may actually generate revenue for the federal government.

[Kithio Mwanzia]

That's correct. The CMA, the Canadian Manufacturers' Association, pegs the total cost of interprovincial trade barriers at about $6.5 billion a year, of which the interprovincial trade barriers related to wine and agriculture take up approximately $1.5 billion.

As far as the opportunity to expand private sector opportunities and generate revenue for the federal government, those are the numbers that could be a fundamental change for the Canadian economy: the generation of jobs and the creation of industry.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Ms. Walker, you're obviously from a different part of the province of Ontario, but you are a member of the chamber. I wonder if you could comment a little on the issues you face and whether the businesses in Sarnia face some of the same issues in agriculture as they do in St. Catharines.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Very briefly, Ms. Walker.

[Katherine Walker]

As far as agriculture and the requirement to do more with less, I don't think there's any difference between one geographic area and another. We have a vast county, and a large part of it is agriculture, so we certainly hear from our farmers.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you.

We'll go to Mr. Brison, please.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Thank you to all of you for your interventions.

Ms. Pearson, we've had philanthropic organizations propose the elimination of capital gains tax on gifts of land or private company holdings. In the past it was commenced by a Liberal government; we cut the capital gains tax on gifts of publicly listed securities. The Conservatives continued and further reduced the capital gains tax on gifts of publicly listed securities.

There's a lot of interest on this committee in unleashing a lot of potential contributions to a number of your organizations, whether you're talking about medical research or museums--the cultural sector. I'd really appreciate your thoughts on the proposal to make it easier to give, or at least not to tax people when they're giving significant contributions.

[Hilary Pearson]

Thank you, Mr. Brison, and thank you for your support in previous years. Thank you to the current government for cutting the capital gains tax on donations of public securities.

We do support in principle any measure that will support more giving to charities in this country. My members have asked me to tell you that we support the stretch tax credit proposal of Imagine Canada. It's not that we don't support the idea of eliminating capital gains tax on donations of private company shares; we do. But we know that the government has choices to make. We know that you can't do everything, much as we would like that. So we chose this year to support the stretch tax credit proposal because we would like to see more giving by smaller donors. We want to enlarge the base of donors in the country. I think that's a very important thing to do for the future.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Thank you very much.

I'm delighted that interprovincial trade barriers have come into this discussion. And while it's not a direct fiscal issue, in terms of the budget, it's a very important economic issue. The Macdonald Laurier Institute estimates that interprovincial trade barriers cost $8 billion per year. Put another way, getting rid of interprovincial trade barriers would put $1,000 into the pockets of each and every family of four in Canada.

What's kind of crazy is that it's something we're doing to ourselves. The international financial crisis or global economy.... Sometimes we get hit with crises that are not of our own making, but this is something we're doing to ourselves. So even though it's not a direct fiscal hit, Mr. Chair, I think it's something we ought to consider having as part of our report.

On the issue of wines, and your region, the Niagara region, my region, the Annapolis Valley of Nova Scotia, in fact has seven new wineries in the last two years. I hear from our producers on an ongoing basis that they can't sell in New Brunswick. They may be able to sell some wines in Quebec and others in France or Germany, but not in a place like New Brunswick. It just shows you the absolute abject stupidity of some of these regulations.

I would urge you to continue your campaign on this. It's something that affects every province, and takes away jobs and money directly out of the pockets of hard-working Canadian families. I think it's something we ought to as a Parliament, if not specific to this committee, take on with renewed vigour.

I wanted to thank you for your interventions today.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you, Mr. Brison.

We'll go to Mr. Menzies, please.

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

Thank you.

I would like to echo Mr. Brison's comment, of which I always am supportive, except for yesterday's comments.

Alberta and British Columbia have put in place a trade, investment, and labour mobility agreement, TILMA. I'm certainly a proponent of encouraging its promotion all across the country. It's not perfect, but it's a step in the right direction.

So each one of the associations here that has mentioned that issue, I would encourage you, when you're speaking to our provincial counterparts, to encourage them to take a close look at that and see if that won't work. Just a comment there.

To the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, Mr. McKee, I'm a big supporter of your organization, probably one of the ones I funnel most of my donations through. It certainly touched our family, and I'm sure everyone around here has someone that diabetes has touched.

Talking about research and development, just recently Minister Goodyear announced for next year $11.7 billion, certainly not just for juvenile diabetes, but for overall research. So your comments about it are encouraging, that we need to keep funding research. It's probably the highest investment Canada has made to date in R and D.

We still agree with your comment that commercialization is what's missing. Is that what is missing in diabetes research as well, bringing it to commercial development?

[Andrew McKee]

It is. The very nature of this partnership that we struck with the government was targeted entirely at commercialization. JDRF has a long history of good basic research here in Canada. Diabetes has actually been cured in animal models many times over. There are 174 ways to cure diabetes in mice. There are 76 ways to cure diabetes in rats. But we have not moved that into a human model as yet. So the commercialization process, the clinical trials process, is the mechanism by which we're going to get that there, and this is a foundation for commercializing some of those technologies here in Canada.