Evidence of meeting #19 for Finance in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was yukon.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Krista Prochazka  Executive Director, Tourism Industry Association of the Yukon
Tara Christie  Chair, Finance and Taxation Committee, Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada
Philip Bousquet  Senior Program Director, Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada
Sandra Babcock  President, Yukon Chamber of Commerce

10:55 a.m.

President, Yukon Chamber of Commerce

Sandra Babcock

There have not been a lot of formal discussions on that. However, we just came through a territorial election, and energy was very topical throughout the campaign.There were commitments and suggestions that we connect to the B.C. grid. There was not a lot of discussion about the Alaska grid.

It's unfortunate you don't have more time in the territories. We have our conference starting today, but tomorrow we are having a speaker from the Alaska economic development authority talk about port access and energy, telecommunications, and the synergies between Yukon and Alaska that we could better spend our money on to make it go further.

10:55 a.m.

Liberal

Scott Brison Liberal Kings—Hants, NS

Half of Canada-U.S. trade goes through either a pipeline or an electrical grid, so we have a high level of trade in energy currently. The Americans used a significant part of their stimulus to invest in energy transmission and production modernization under Secretary of Energy Chu, and I think that scenario should be a little more focused towards working together in some of those areas.

I have a question on the issue of tourism promotion and the gap between what the Americans are spending and what we are able to spend. In your opinion, should we be looking at regional strategies aimed at attracting people globally to the U.S. and Canada in terms of areas—if you looked, for instance, at the northeastern U.S. and Atlantic Canada; if you looked at parts of New England and Quebec; and in terms of the northwestern U.S., Alaska and the Yukon? Should we be a little more creative in trying to find ways to cross-pollinate and invest jointly in promoting our regions, still having distinct areas of focus but trying to work more closely with American organizations and groups in that regard?

10:55 a.m.

Executive Director, Tourism Industry Association of the Yukon

Krista Prochazka

I believe we have to be, and to some extent we are. The dollars that are being invested in growing economies all over the globe to promote themselves mean that we have to be creative, and the best way to leverage the resources we have is through partnership.

The Yukon does partner with Alaska, for instance, to promote our corner of the world. We also partner with our sister territories in the same way, and I think this would really work with our southern partners as well.

While it's a really solid investment, we don't have unlimited resources, and partnering is a great way to leverage what we have.

10:55 a.m.

Liberal

Scott Brison Liberal Kings—Hants, NS

You can't really say that you see Russia from your house.

10:55 a.m.

Executive Director, Tourism Industry Association of the Yukon

Krista Prochazka

I wouldn't....

10:55 a.m.

Liberal

Scott Brison Liberal Kings—Hants, NS

Thank you very much.

10:55 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative James Rajotte

Thank you, Mr. Brison.

We'll go to Ms. Glover, please.

10:55 a.m.

Conservative

Shelly Glover Conservative Saint Boniface, MB

Mr. Chair, I am really thrilled about the way the pre-budget consultations have gone so far.

Once again today there is a reiteration of a bit of a theme. I'm just going to touch on it a little bit and then ask you a question, Ms. Babcock, about this theme.

The theme that is repeating itself is the NDP supporting infrastructure investment. We all know that $56 billion of stimulus was put forward, and the NDP voted against it. It's time to get their support to do these things--for example, the public infrastructure money that was put into the next phase of Canada's economic action plan. We talk about the Dempster Highway, which is essential, I would think, to making sure that businesses flourish.

Is that true, Ms. Babcock? Will doing the extension of the highway help?

11 a.m.

President, Yukon Chamber of Commerce

Sandra Babcock

The Dempster Highway was an incredible opening up of northern Yukon, and not just of northern Yukon but of the NWT; it's a great asset to the NWT for Inuvik as well. Now they have road infrastructure to access southern Canada.

I don't think anybody is going to argue that investment in infrastructure projects is a bad investment., but I think that—

11 a.m.

Conservative

Shelly Glover Conservative Saint Boniface, MB

I agree.

11 a.m.

President, Yukon Chamber of Commerce

Sandra Babcock

—for public bodies the return on investment is going to be seen longer term, not in the short term.

11 a.m.

Conservative

Shelly Glover Conservative Saint Boniface, MB

I appreciate those comments.

You touched on P3 for just a very short moment. I would like you to tell us, because there are some across the table who would like us to cancel that program—and I know that the Chief Peguis highway in my community, which is Winnipeg, Manitoba, wouldn't exist were it not for a P3—whether you would like to see that eliminated. Or do you support our furthering P3 projects?

11 a.m.

President, Yukon Chamber of Commerce

Sandra Babcock

The Yukon chamber's position is that we support P3s.

11 a.m.

Conservative

Shelly Glover Conservative Saint Boniface, MB

Thanks. And thanks for touching on health as well. I think the move towards a forgiveness of student loans for doctors and health professionals in remote communities is essential to such places as the Yukon.

Do you think it will also benefit the Yukon?

11 a.m.

President, Yukon Chamber of Commerce

Sandra Babcock

It might bring my daughter home.

11 a.m.

Conservative

Shelly Glover Conservative Saint Boniface, MB

What does your daughter do?

11 a.m.

President, Yukon Chamber of Commerce

Sandra Babcock

She is in nursing, and she's in Alberta because there are great jobs there—or challenging jobs there, put it that way.

11 a.m.

Conservative

Shelly Glover Conservative Saint Boniface, MB

Oh, great; that's good to hear.

I'm going to share my time with Ms. McLeod.

11 a.m.

Conservative

Cathy McLeod Conservative Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC

The last thing I'd like to focus on is exploration. The one piece you haven't had an opportunity to expand on is geoscience mapping. Of course, I hear these terms, but since I do not live and breathe mining, can you talk a little bit about what it is accomplishing? Give me some more details around what we've done and where we've gone and why it's important.

11 a.m.

Chair, Finance and Taxation Committee, Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada

Tara Christie

I think it's a great use of public dollars, because it's public geoscience. It is looking and doing the base line exploration that gets people in to look at new areas.

The new discovery in the Yukon, just as an example, the ATAC discovery, was actually a result of public geoscience money. There was a little bit of eight ppm gold, and some people followed up on it. It was in a regional database. People were scouring through that public geoscience and saying “Oh, this is interesting; I'm going to go and follow up on it”, and they did. ATAC last year was a $900-million market cap company. It has been a tremendous boon; it set up a whole new trend in the Yukon. And that can happen anywhere in the north.

What public geoscience is doing is providing the information that lets new companies go in to explore. Knowing areas of geological potential is also important for such things as land-use planning. While we think we know a lot, we really don't know very much about the geology in the north yet. We have a tremendous amount of work to do before people go in to explore it, before we can determine what areas we should protect. All of that is a great use of public geoscience data.

11 a.m.

Conservative

Cathy McLeod Conservative Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC

So where are we? Apparently, we're mapping significant parts of the country. Are we almost there? Will we come to an end of the need shortly?

October 25th, 2011 / 11 a.m.

Senior Program Director, Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada

Philip Bousquet

When you look at regions such as Nunavut, much of Nunavut is still unmapped. The technology for mapping improves each decade, so the money that Natural Resources Canada committed in 2008—$100 million over five years to the geomapping for energy and minerals program—has made significant improvements to it.

That program is coming to a close, and that's why it's something we encourage the government to continue.

11 a.m.

Conservative

Cathy McLeod Conservative Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC

Okay, so we're not all mapped yet. Thank you.

11 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative James Rajotte

Thank you.

I want to thank the witnesses on behalf of the entire committee for being here today and for your presentations and responses to our questions. It was a very informative session. We thank you for your hospitality as well.

Colleagues, I have just a couple of notes. We will be having lunch next door. My understanding is that the Premier will be joining us at about 11:15; I think we'll all want to be there for that. We have to be on the bus sharply at about noon, so you can plan your time and check out of your rooms as well.

Again, thank you so much for having us here. Please feel free to follow up with any other information you want.

The meeting is adjourned.